Case Study: Gamifying the digital dating experience.
Role: Lead UX designer, brand designer, and usability tester (2011).
Problem
- Users abandon the app after initial interactions.
- Users are not finding the app experience engaging or enjoyable enough to stay active and invested.
Solution
- Profile Completion Rewards: Users earned badges and points for fully completing their profiles, including adding photos and answering personality questions. This encouraged users to provide more detailed information, enhancing match quality.
- Daily Challenges and Quests: Introduced daily challenges that rewarded users for activities like sending a message, liking profiles, and updating their status. This encouraged regular app usage.
- Achievement Badges: Awarded badges for milestones such as the number of matches, successful dates, and trying new features. This provided users with a sense of accomplishment.
- Referral Bonuses: Offered rewards for users who referred friends to the app, encouraging word-of-mouth growth.
Results
- Huge increase in daily active users.
- Reduction in user churn within the first three months of implementation.
- The app became the #1 Dating App with 4-stars based on 1600+ ratings in iTunes.
- Positive user feedback, with many users highlighting the gamification features as a reason for their continued use of the app.
- Generated over 1 million member signups per month since launch.
