It’s undeniable that gamification done right keeps learners engaged for longer, leading to increased watch time and course completions. But with content engagement being so closely linked to customer retention, we wondered how else we could elevate gamification techniques to keep customers happy – and subscribed – for longer.
With the dashboard often being the point of entry for a learner, it’s important that we encourage the completion of actions that improve engagement. For example, it is well documented that Duolingo utilizes the “daily streak” to help learners build healthy learning habits, encouraging daily engagement. We utilized a similar approach here on Absolute Dogs.
We utilize a points system – where points are awarded for the completion of certain achievements – as well as a points-based level indicator to help users to keep track of their progress.
The top two panels encourage learners to be more adventurous with their learning by awarding points and badges for engaging with a wider variety of content, whether they be other courses or videos within categories they don’t often explore.
With community at the centre of Absolute Dogs’ learning experience, we also encouraged social sharing of a user’s achievements – which simultaneously provides a form of social marketing.
Ever struggle to find something to watch on Netflix? This is choice paralysis within our daily lives.
Free-form learning experiences without formal structures, such as Netflix-style video libraries where users consume any content in any order, can often lead users to feel lost and overwhelmed with the sheer volume of content.
To help new learners over choice paralysis, we used “badge stacks” to provide an optional structure to the learning. Stacks chains badge them together and are awarded when users start their learning at the optimal entry point and continue down a guided structure. It answers the question of “what next” and gets learners to feel the value of the content much quicker, which is designed to reduce churn for new customers.
Triggers are criteria that must be met in order for the learner to be awarded points or badges. It’s wise to create a large number of triggers to ensure variety and to avoid awarding of badges to feel repetitive or predictable. Some of the triggers implemented are:
-The user completes a weekly challenge
-The user watches a video (tracked using Vimeo’s API)
-User joins the Facebook community
-The user completes a stack of badges
-Repeatable habit-building actions (like logging in 5 days in a row or completing five lessons in one sitting)
-The user reaches a points threshold
-The user reaches a level threshold
