Duration
3 Months, 2023
team
1 Project Designer
1 Researcher,
1 PM, Ops
role
Product Designer,  
tools
Figma, Miro, Adobe After Effects, LottieFiles
Overview

Premise needed a way to improve user retention and increase engagement in order to boost Premise task submissions. We decided to implement a gamified challenge on both a weekly and monthly basis to meet these objectives.

problem

We were experiencing low long term user engagement. Most new users were active for 1-3 days but didn't revisit. Also, current users initially submitted tasks often but stopped after 3-4 weeks.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we encourage users to build the habit of using the Premise app over time?
Goal
Design the Premise app to encourage daily user engagement.
  • Improve user retention
  • Increase the task submission
  • Provide an enjoyable and interactive experience that is easy to use
solution

Provide a delightful and interactive monthly challenge with rewards and advanced task access to motivate user participation.

First Time User Tutorial

Provide a straightforward experience for first time users by displaying the tutorial once they tap the banner.

Banner Status

Display the monthly challenge banner status in the 'Task marketplace' for easy tracking and to encourage users to maintain their streaks.

Progress Status

Let users know whether they have maintained their weekly streaks or not.

This feature provides them with motivation to complete 4 weeks and double their tickets.

Interactions on the Detail page

Either swiping the cards or tapping the progress bar allows users to check the ticket numbers for each week.

Tapping the question icon shows information on 'How the challenge works' through the bottom sheet.

RESEARCH

From past interviews, I started with the question “Why is there a lack of user retention and engagement in the app?”

TARGET AUDIENCE
user journey map

Based on interviews, I created a user journey map for new users to identify their pain points and find opportunities to improve their experiences.

Learnings & Findings

Compared my assumptions with insights from the user interviews. It helped me focus on what problems to solve.

ASSUMPTION 1

People always prefer high paying tasks.

LEARNING 1

Most people want fast and simple tasks to complete.
Even if the payment is low, they can make it up with volume.

ASSUMPTION 2

Even if there aren't enough tasks available at the moment, people will check the app again later.

LEARNING 2

Users are unaware that there are tasks to be completed nearby because there is no live notification feature.

Users have no motivation to complete tasks everyday because the difficulty level of some tasks affects how often they revisit the app.

ASSUMPTION 3

People will achieve their own side income expectations.

LEARNING 3

Most people realize that in order to reach their side income goals, they will need to learn how to complete difficult tasks that pay significantly more than low paying easy tasks.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
01

At the beginning, if the difficulty level is too high, users will give up quickly because they will get frustrated. We should encourage users to build a habit by promoting easy tasks.

02

By gradually increasing the difficulty based on the success rate of the users’ submissions, they will complete harder tasks over the long run.

thought

At first we thought it was about getting users motivated to use the app. However after interviewing users, we realized that motivation is not enough to get consistent engagement. Instead we think it’s more about building a habit so they use the app daily.

Design goals

  1. Make the events noticeable on the Task Marketplace.
  2. Maintaining streaks are easy and checking progress is straightforward.
  3. Encourage users to keep their streaks through gamification.
3 Concepts & Feedbacks

I had 4 different concepts for the features. After a design critique with designers, researchers, and a PM, we chose 3 concepts to implement and challenge.

Concept 1: New Banner

Users can check their monthly challenge on the new banner in the Task Marketplace. It shows weekly progress, remaining days, encouragement, and recommended tasks for users who complete them early.

Separating it from the carousel makes it more visible and avoids swiping with other bonus rewards runs.

  • It's clear to check the status, and its visibility encourages users to maintain their streaks.
  • Displaying the number of days left for week 1 would be very helpful in keeping the challenge in mind.
  • The recommended task distracts me from the challenge.
  • Even if I complete just one task per week, it seems I can still get a ticket.
Concept 2: Expanding calendar
Display a calendar that expands to show the week and month, along with streak days and total ticket numbers.
Completing each week doubles the ticket count. If users finish all 4 weeks, we double the total tickets at the end of the month. This increases the chances of winning.
  • Displaying the calendar doesn't encourage me to keep the streaks
  • It looks busy and complicated
  • "I want to know how much money I can get if I win."
Concept 3: Recover task

We offer recovery tasks for weekly tasks (4-week streaks). We only provide one chance to recover their streaks, and users should complete the specific tasks that we suggest. Once they complete this recovery task, they can maintain their streaks.

  • It's a good idea that we give users one chance to keep their streaks. It encourages users to maintain the streaks!
  • How can we manage the recovery tasks? Depending on the week, area, or country, we offer different tasks.
Iteration

I Iterated multiple times before we conducted the user testing!

WIREFRAMES
USABILITY TESTING

We conducted user testing through Lookback with 19 participants, including both current users and people who have never used the Premise app. Additionally, we separated groups A and B to compare different design elements.

Research Goals:

  • Evaluate the usability (learnability, efficiency, memorability, satisfaction) of the challenges flow.
  • Examine the understanding of the first time user tutorial, and how users find additional information.
  • Check whether user can interact with the cards swiping and progress bar tapping.
  • Determine how users can check the eligible tasks whether tapping the card, the ‘Go to Task Marketplace’ button, or the back button.
The Learnings

Through usability testing, I was able to validate design problems by observing which steps confused users, therefore evaluating for a better user experience.

BEFORE
AFTER
  • 1. Win banner
    Some users were confused by 'Win $100.' They thought we were giving it to everyone who completed 4 week streak.
  • 2. Ticket count
    Shows potential ticket earnings. Some people couldn’t calculate the doubled ticket numbers.
  • 3. Brief description
    Display more information to help users understand the challenge.
BEFORE
AFTER
  • 1. Progress bar
    Almost everyone understood the interaction between the progress bar and cards.

    However, due to text overflow with different written languages, I changed the layout. Instead of showing the word week for every week, it is only listed once with only the number representing the week.  
  • 2. Cards
    On this page, user testing participants first swiped the card section. They understood the information and found where the tasks are by tapping the 'Go to Task marketplace' button.
BEFORE (Option A)
AFTER (Option B)
  • 1.  Button to connect the tasks
    We ran A and B versions: one with a CTA (call-to-action) and one without a CTA.

    In Group A, which had a CTA, everyone understood where the tasks were.

    However, in Group B without a CTA, users had to tap the back button to find tasks.
Design decisions

We have weekly and monthly challenges. Since our app targets over 130 countries, I had to consider accessibility, internationalization.

  • Text overflow. (Show other language)
  • Swiping vs scrolling (Finger gesture)
  • Considering different scenarios based on task submission and durations, I had to create many design options
Prototype
1. Display banner status to encourage user to keep their streaks.

Users can check their monthly challenge status on the 'Task marketplace'. It reminds them of their streaks as well as encourage them to see how many days are left.

Happy path- Completed 4 weeks

Reminder count 3 days ahead of each week.

Unhappy path - Missed week 1 and week 2.

Once it's tapped, it connects to the detail page.

2. Tutorials for first time user and more info for all users

First time user tutorial helps users understand. Even if they skip this, they can access the info by tapping the question icon in the detail page.

First-time user explanation pops up when users tap the monthly challenge banner for the first time.

Explain about the monthly challenge and connect it to the detail page.

Even if users skip or forget how it works, tapping the question icon shows info about this challenge.

3. Detail page interactions guide users through complex processes more effectively, engaging them and helping them accomplish tasks more easily.

Users can check next week challenge starts and previous week's work process by swiping cards.

Swiping cards allows users to check when the next week challenge starts and previous week's status.

Count ticket number when users submit the task and it shows the progress status.

'Go to Task marketplace' button connects to the 'Task marketplace' where users can do any tasks.

Tapping the question icon shows how the challenge works.

4. Other use cases

Unhappy path, 7 day banners, 7 days challenge, 7 tasks per week

Unhappy path of monthly challenge

7 day banner shows Monday to Sunday.

7 days challenge requires 1 task per day.

Submit 7 tasks per week for a month.

refLEction
What I learned

Figuring out why we have low user retention via user interviews was the first step, and it provided deeper insights into user perspectives. Based on their experiences, I created a new user journey map, which helped understand what new users want and how they behave when using the Premise app.

Since Premise wants many diverse scenario designs for monthly and weekly challenges in multiple languages, I had to adjust the design for accessibility, internationalization, and localization. It was an exciting design challenge that required more thought and insight.

Future plan
  1. Specific Tasks & Recovery Task
    The next step would require users to submit specific tasks and provide an opportunity for them to recover their streak if they miss it. In such cases, they should complete recovery tasks that we offer.
  2. Different types of rewards
    For example, I created a demo of an AR (Augmented Reality) celebration experience that users can share on social media or with friends. It could be a way to market Premise whenever users share their AR celebration.

I'm looking forward to discussing this project in more detail. Please contact me if you want to know more about this project or have any questions.