Product Designer
Product Manager, Behavioral Scientist, Frontend & Backend Engineers, QA, Visual Designer
6 months
Members were creating their own challenges on WW’s in-app social media platform. This signaled that there was an unmet need for gamified experiences to keep users engaged.
In tandem, WW had a badging system, but it didn't transcend across the entire member journey. Members would receive badges for tracking their first vegetable, but wouldn’t get any recognition for 100 days of tracking or a 15-pound weight loss. Members were frustrated with the lack of recognition for their efforts.
Members needed an extra layer of accountability and motivation to help them overcome plateaus and setbacks in their weight loss journey.
Creating a system of challenges that rewards users with badges, rather than Wins, would save the business millions of dollars and make users more likely to lose weight and autorebill.
WW’s rewards program, WellnessWins, was costing WW 8.2MM/year. The business was eager to explore non-monetary ways to reward and celebrate members.
KPIs:
• Increase % of members tracking key program behaviors
• Engagement with challenges
• Challenge opt-in and completion rates
To encourage members to join, the “start” CTAs are sticky. After joining, a leave CTA becomes present below the fold.
I user tested designs with imagery, but found that users were easily confused (members thought the Weekend Challenge was about breakfast because there was a photo of waffles). Images are also less extensible than badges.
I decided to display the badge that members will earn from completing the challenge as the main focal point of the UI. This also helps members make the connection that challenges and badges are related to each other.
Because badges give a sense of ownership, and are tied to someone’s identity, I determined that they should live in profile.
Weight loss is a personal journey, so I decided that badges should be hidden when viewing someone else’s profile, but shareable to Connect (WW's internal social media platform). This gives members flexibility and choice, and respects their privacy.
We designed a complex system of badges that we wanted to launch with, but ultimately only launched challenge badges to start. We couldn’t reach a consensus with leadership on which cumulative badges were most valuable to users. Our decision to wait to launch cumulative badges was disappointing, but made sense.