Applying Gamification to Find Friends
My Role
Sole UX/UI Designer
Tools Used
Miro, Pen and Paper, Adobe XD
Duration
90 Hours
The Overview
A start-up company created an app called CongreMate to enhance the social user experience. The app supports people who have relocated to a new city meet new friends and helps people native to an area experience new activities in person. However, the company noticed that on average only 20% of users who signed up to attend an event would actually show up. Over 90 hours, I devised a solution in the form of a minimum viable product to increase event attendance rates.
The Problem
How can CongreMate entice users to show up for events they sign-up to attend?
The Solution
By integrating gamification elements, CongreMate will stimulate satisfaction and maintain motivation in users. The gamification elements include points, badges, leaderboards, and conversations with new group members.
User Data
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32 - 55 years old
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Men and women
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Middle class
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Recently relocated to a new city
Research
To better understand why users do not attend an event they signed up for, I conducted secondary research focusing on psychology. Psychological data provides deeper insights into key causes than a user trying to explain why they do something.
Secondary Research
I allocated 10 hours to conduct secondary research to answer the following questions:
What are the main causes of users not attending events they signed up for?
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What do users feel as the event comes closer and why?
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What motivates the 20% of users to attend the event?
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These key insights helped drive the synthesizing of research:
Motivation affects satisfaction which influences the desire to attend future events.
Woohyuk Kim & Kristin Malek (2017) Understanding the relationship among motivation to attend, satisfaction, and loyalty of medical convention attendees, Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 18:4, 282-300, DOI: 10.1080/15470148.2017.1366384
How a user feels during the initiation after signing up for an event directly impacts their motivation to attend the event.
TANG, T.L.-P., TOLLISON, P.S. and WHITESIDE, H.D. (1987), THE EFFECT OF QUALITY CIRCLE INITIATION ON MOTIVATION TO ATTEND QUALITY CIRCLE MEETINGS AND ON TASK PERFORMANCE. Personnel Psychology, 40: 799-814. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1987.tb00625.x
Drivers of attendance are divided into four categories: rest from everyday worries, acquiring new knowledge, spending time with family, the need for socialization.
Godovykh, M. (2020). Motivation to attend planned events. Events Research. Retrieved March 16, 2022, from http://eventsresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Event-motivation.pdf
I also questioned how other companies currently provide incentives to users for attending events. I reviewed their apps and saw:
An agenda section to excite members about the event.
A button to forward events to a friend, which introduces accountability of honoring an RSVP through social pressure.
Group forums/a messaging system to help event members engage each other.
Key Findings
The key insights revealed that user motivation directly impacts their satisfaction, and satisfaction is most fragile at the initiation stage (after sign-up but before attending). Maintaining motivation starts with the very first sign-up and has to be nurtured through each checkpoint before, during, and after attending an event. Gamification accomplishes this.
Gamification encourages positive engagement that will aid in maintaining motivation to attend an event. By providing incentives (points or badges) for an activity that will increase satisfaction (reaching out to a new member of a group to make them feel welcomed), a cycle of reinforced motivation will increase member attendance rates.
User Flows
To understand how to create features that resonate with users, I brainstormed first how users typically interact with an event app. Specifically, the elements they look for and in what situations. Next, keeping the finding of my research in mind, I integrated gamification characteristics into the elements users interact with most. Finally, I chose the gamification features that would be most engaging to users.
Red Routes
By thinking like a user of CongreMate, the brainstorming session also assisted in the creation of three user flows that will be navigated most often by users. These red routes will be the focus of the minimum viable product design.
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Finding Events to Attend Red Route
Messaging a New Group Member Red Route
Check Gamification Stats Red Route
Design
The three red routes were thoughtfully designed and went through two rounds of user testing to expose any friction points. Two rounds of updates also occurred to remove the friction points and enhance engagement opportunities.
Low-Fidelity Sketches
I allocated nine hours to building the low-fidelity design and decided to create hand-made sketches. The sketches demonstrated the flow of the red routes and the basic features within the app.
Guerilla Usability Testing
I drove to a local park in my downtown area and asked people who fit the target demographic to test my low-fidelity paper app until I had completed five user tests. The objectives were to find any initial problems with the layout and reveal the level of cognitive load based on the page hierarchy.
The findings of this test validated the low-fidelity design as it was. However, while I conducted the tests, I asked users their opinions on adding a save event feature. This feature would allow users to receive notifications about an event they had not RSVP for in hopes of them actually attending. All users who tested the app expressed a want for this feature, so I added this feature to the high-fidelity design.
Low-Fidelity Sketch of Finding Events to Attend Red Route
High-Fidelity Prototype
I created the high-fidelity prototype in Adobe XD based on the brand’s attributes (caring, familiar, humorous, and optimistic). The color palette used represents caring and optimism. Features within the app are standard in other apps and familiar to users. Lastly, some of the gamification aspects (such are the card-like shape of the pages) express playfulness and humor.
High-Fidelity Desgin of Finding Events to Attend Red Route - Partial
The gamification aspects differentiate this app from other event apps. As soon as the user opens the interface, a progress bar stands out, beckoning users to obtain more points. Many engaging gamification features found throughout the app stimulate motivation, satisfaction, and the feeling of belonging.
Points
Providing points for a task will increase motivation to complete that task.
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Tasks can include:
signing-up for a new event
attending an event
adjusting the RSVP
sharing an event with friends
Badges
Presenting a user with a badge after a fixed amount of points is accumulated will increase the satisfaction of completing tasks. Additionally, arranging a leaderboard of top attendees of a group that displays on every group event page is another way CongreMate increases the satisfaction of continuously attending an event.
Initiation
​The gamification features that help new group members feel welcomed include presenting a user with a badge for attending their first event and allocating points to current group members for messaging a new group member before the event.
Remote Usability Testing
The remote usability tests had two objectives: to reveal any additional problems not exposed in the guerilla usability tests and to observe users’ behavior on how well the platform will engage them to attend events. This round of testing uncovered issues ranging from minor visual updates to critical user friction points. With these problems found, I brainstormed ideas to revamp the final design.
Interactive Prototype
Conclusion
Overall, users found the app easy to understand and engaging to use. Through the integration of gamification features, CongreMate differentiates itself in the market space while also stimulating users’ satisfaction to maintain motivation in attending an event.
Additional testing after the launch of CongreMate is needed to quantify the attendance rates. However, attendance rates are predicted to increase exponentially based on other research on gamification.