Context
Luupli aims to integrate unique reward systems into its social media experience. "Earn Pees" rewards users for interacting with content, while "Gift Pees" allows users to gift virtual tokens to others. Both features were designed to foster user engagement and create value on the platform without involving complex financial operations.
Problem Definition
Luupli aims to integrate unique reward systems into its social media experience. "Earn Pees" rewards users for interacting with content, while "Gift Pees" allows users to gift virtual tokens to others. Both features were designed to foster user engagement and create value on the platform without involving complex financial operations.
Creating Engagement Incentives: Encouraging users to engage more deeply with content by offering rewards (Pees).
Incentivizing Daily Activity: Building daily check-in rewards that escalate with consecutive logins to foster habit formation.
Implementing a Gifting System: Allowing users to gift Pees without needing financial regulation since Pees couldn't be redeemed for real money.
Maintaining Delight and Clarity: Ensuring the user experience was delightful without overwhelming the user with notifications or visual clutter.
Understanding Requirements
I collaborated with the PM, engineers, and stakeholders to fully understand the requirements. I broke down the user stories and acceptance criteria to gain a detailed understanding of the scope of work, with key questions around tracking engagement, criteria for rewards, and ways to notify users without disrupting the user experience.
User Stories included:
Earn Pees: "As a user, I want to earn Pees as rewards for viewing content and logging into Luupli daily."
Gift Pees: "As a user, I want to gift Pees from my Luupli wallet to creators, friends, or family."
Brainstorming & Ideation
Once I had clarity on the requirements, I broke the tasks into smaller pieces. I focused on how to visually communicate the rewards system and integrate Pees into various user actions, ensuring clear feedback loops between user engagement and rewards.
For instance, for watching videos (called "Luups"), the key tasks included:
Indicating how long users needed to watch a video to earn Pees.
Displaying the Pees that users could earn per video.
Ensuring seamless integration of Pees updates into the interface without breaking user immersion.
Key Ideas
Visual Indicators for Rewards: I used a golden dot in the video progress bar to signify when a user had watched enough of a video to earn Pees. This visual cue matched the overall brand design, leveraging gold, which was already a part of the Pees coin visual identity.
Reward Notification Animations: To make earning Pees delightful, I designed a sparkle animation that appears when a user hits the golden mark. This subtle effect was inspired by Facebook's like button animation and aimed to provide a sense of accomplishment without distracting users from watching content.
Notification Systems: Users would receive real-time alerts when they earned Pees, via simple notifications or engaging animations.
Competitive Research
I examined other apps, such as TikTok and Instagram, to understand how they handled similar features. This research provided insights into successful interaction patterns and user flows, which I adapted to suit Luupli's context.
Wireframing & Prototyping
With the ideas solidified, I moved to wireframing and low-fidelity sketches. These helped map out the user flows, particularly focusing on entry points for earning Pees, displaying earned Pees, and handling the gifting of Pees.
For rewards on watching content, I designed cues that displayed the number of Pees users could earn for watching the video. I also added a visual cue on the progress bar of the video indicating how long they need to watch the video to be rewarded.
For rewards on daily logins, I settled on boldly displaying the amount of Pees the user just earned in a bottom sheet that pops up as soon as they open the app for the first time that day. I also added a streak at the bottom of the sheet to show them they're progress, how much they've earned and how many more pees they can earn by logging in daily.
For "Gift Pees," I designed a flow where users could gift Pees to a creator by tapping on the "gift box" icon on a video, select the amount to gift, and send the gift with a personalized message.
Demo & Feedback
After creating high-fidelity prototypes, I presented the designs to stakeholders. The feedback from the PM was particularly encouraging regarding the sparkle animation that delighted users when they earned Pees. It was noted as a small but effective feature to enhance user engagement.
Final Design
Earn Pees:
Luup Video Interaction: A golden dot on the progress bar indicates the reward threshold. A badge showing the current Pees and potential earnings overlays the video content, subtly integrating the reward system.
Notification Animations: Once a user earns Pees, a sparkle animation on the badge acknowledges the reward.
Daily Rewards: Users receive bonus Pees for logging in each day, with escalating rewards for consecutive check-ins. This was integrated into the profile page, where users could track their streak and upcoming rewards.
Gift Pees:
User Flow: Users could access the gifting feature directly from their Luupli Wallet. The flow allowed for easy selection of recipients, gift amounts, and message personalization. I ensured this process was smooth, without overwhelming users with unnecessary steps.
Regulatory Workarounds: To avoid regulatory issues with real-money transfers, Pees remained virtual tokens. This design decision helped simplify the user experience while avoiding legal complications.
Results
The final designs achieved the following outcomes:
Enhanced User Engagement: By offering immediate rewards for content interaction and escalating bonuses for daily check-ins, the system incentivized users to spend more time on the app and return regularly.
Delightful User Experience: The animation effects and seamless integration of rewards into the video watching experience provided moments of delight, encouraging users to continue engaging with content.
Simplified Gifting Mechanism: The Pees gifting system offered users a way to appreciate content creators and friends without needing real-money transactions, thus staying within legal and regulatory guidelines.
Conclusion
Designing the Earn & Gift Pees features for Luupli was an exciting challenge that allowed me to creatively solve for user engagement while navigating regulatory complexities. The project honed my ability to design for delight, integrate gamification into a social media platform, and create a seamless user experience that tied into Luupli's core objectives. These features helped lay the groundwork for a successful MVP launch.