Category: Process and Methods

How to Use Gamification in Mobile Apps: A Case Study

by:   |  Posted on

Gamification, or the addition of game-like elements to anything that isn’t a game, pops up all over the design world.

In my last post for Boxes and Arrows, I focused specifically on gamification in mobile app onboarding. The moment when users first open your app is critical to the app’s success, and you can use gamification as a tool to get a new user through the learning curve.

But gamification doesn’t just fit with onboarding. It’s possible to apply gamification to any part of app design, or even design an entire app—that is not a mobile gaming application—around it.

I’ll examine Forest, a productivity app, as a case study of gamification embedded so deeply into an app’s framework that gamification becomes the entire reason to use the app in the first place.

Continue reading How to Use Gamification in Mobile Apps: A Case Study

How to Use Gamification in Mobile App Onboarding

Game design isn't just relevant to video games by:   |  Posted on

Playing games is a human impulse. People get a kick out of competing, collecting things, and finishing tasks. You can apply game design elements to anything, which is called gamification.

Mobile app onboarding is a useful place for a touch of competition or goal-setting. Whether as small as a progress bar or as major as a tutorial for a mobile game, these elements help users finish onboarding and come back to the app again.

As a content developer at Clutch, I got the chance to delve into a research survey on the mobile onboarding process. The results support gamification as a resource UX designers can and should turn to. According to the survey, 44% of app users download an app “for fun,” which is more than any other reason. Designers should play to that desire and make onboarding itself fun.

In addition, 72% of respondents said that completing onboarding in less than a minute is important in their decision to keep using the app. Users aren’t willing to spend much time on onboarding, so designers should add elements that convince these users to stay.

This article explores the origin and definition of gamification and provides three specific UX elements you might include as you’re designing a mobile onboarding experience. Continue reading How to Use Gamification in Mobile App Onboarding

User-Centered Design Is Everyone’s Responsibility: A Launch Checklist

by:   |  Posted on

I cannot count how many large-scale projects my team has been a part of where we’re scrambling last-minute to take care of some seemingly small but integral task necessary for launch. I’ve talked to others in the web design and marketing industry; my team is not alone in this launch frenzy. But does that make this odd ritual okay or even acceptable?

The risk when things are missed prior to launch

The worst case scenario? Once live, a project stakeholder notices the missteps and calls out the project team, damaging trust, credibility, and ultimately the relationship.

Scratch that.

Continue reading User-Centered Design Is Everyone’s Responsibility: A Launch Checklist

Monitoring User Experience Through Product Usage Metrics

by: and   |  Posted on

Introduction

User experience (UX) teams have many types of data at their disposal to ascertain the quality of a digital product’s user experience. Traditionally, these sources have focused on direct customer feedback through methods such as interviews and usability studies, as well as surveys[1] and in-product feedback mechanisms. Beyond survey methodologies, however, it can be time-consuming to create a recurring channel of in-depth UX insights through these traditional UX research methods because they require time to conduct, analyze, and create reports of findings.

Continue reading Monitoring User Experience Through Product Usage Metrics

How to Avoid UX Burnout

by:   |  Posted on

As I watched the app go live in across the various app stores I felt exhausted.

The steps leading up to the launch had been intense, involving multiple stakeholders, scores of different user personas, and innumerable iteration cycles spread across a multitude of design teams. We shipped the project on time and shared high-fives all around, but after the dust had settled, I realized how truly tired each step of this project had made me.

After the launch, I was all UX’ed out. Even the sight of a Post-It note felt exhausting. Attributing the fatigue to creative block, I planned to take a few days off to recharge. But because my version of “recharge” also means “process everything,” I also decided to write an article for creatives about how to deal with this kind of block.

Continue reading How to Avoid UX Burnout