One of the 6 Finalists in the Habitica Challenge.

1. Submission by Nathaniel Tseng
Gamification Design Challenge

2. What is Habitica?
Habitica is a gamification
platform that improves user
productivity and builds good
habits.
Users input tasks and gain
experience and gold for
completing them.

3. Improve business metrics, with a specific focus on
long-term engagement and mainstream appeal.
The Goal

4. Outline
1. Strategy Dashboard
• Business Metrics
• Demographics Analysis
• Feedback Mechanics and Incentives
• Win-States
• Core Loop
2. Analysis
• Business Metrics
• Core Loop
• Target Audience
• User Interface
3. Closing Thoughts

5. Part 1:
Strategy Dashboard
BUSINESS
METRICS
WIN-STATE
PLAYER
DESIRED
ACTIONSCOMMITS
RESULTS
IM
PACT
FEEDBACK
MECHANICS
PROGRESS
TRACKS
EMBEDDED
TRIGGERS
INCENTIVE

6. BUSINESS METRICS
1. Onboarding completion
2. Daily active users
1. Weekly returning users after 6 months
2. Social activities and outreach within app
3. Weekly tasks completed per active user

7. DEMOGRAPHICS
ANALYSIS
Socializers
• wants to socialize
with others
• seems highly
represented
• Attuned to CD5, CD1
Killers
• wants to compete
with others
• seems under-
represented
Achievers
• wants to beat the
game
• seems fairly
represented
• Attuned to CD2, CD4
Explorers
• wants to explore the
game
• seems under-
represented
• Attuned to CD3, CD7
Bartle's Taxonomy of Players

8. Avoidance
Ownership
Em
powerm
ent
Meaning
U
npredictability
Accom
plishm
ent
Scarcity
Social
Influence
CD1
CD2
CD6 CD7
CD8
CD4 CD5
CD3
Meaning
• Self-improvement
• Contributing to the
community
• Strength!
Empowerment
• Self-improvement
• Multi-platform
support
Accomplishment
• Leveling System
• Achievements
Ownership
• Avatar customization
• Gear, pet and mount
collections
• Strength!
Social
• Guilds
• Parties
• Community
Challenges
• Strength!
Loss
• Bad habit health
penalties
• Dropping combos
Novelty
• Loot drops
• Lacking!
Scarcity
• Future hinted features
• Lacking!

9. DESIRED ACTIONS
• Completed a task
• Invite friends
• Post in tavern chat
• Customize Avatar
• Participate in challenges
• Log-in daily

10. FEEDBACK MECHANICS
AND INCENTIVES
• Incentives (right)
• HP - Losing HP as
negative feedback,
penalties for dying
• Score and EXP
History - graphs
that show progress
over time
Incentives:
• Experience - Increases
user level
• Gold - Allows user to
purchase rewards
• Equipment - Improves
game interactions
• Gems - Cash currency,
awarded in guild events or
challenges

11. WIN-STATES
Habitica's Win States:
• Task Complete!
• Level Up!
• Quest Complete!
• Challenge Complete!
• Achievement Get!
A Win-State is a state
that the user is working
to move the game
towards.

12. Core Activity Loop
The Core Activity Loop is the order of actions a user
is prompted to take by the system's mechanics. The
best of these naturally loop back on themselves so
that the user does not have to think about what to
do next.

13. Habitica's Core Loop
1. User
creates
tasks
3. Task
completion
yields gold and
experience
4. User
spends gold
on rewards
4. Rewards
improve
yield of
future tasks
2. User
performs tasks
in real life

14. Outline
1. Strategy Dashboard
2. Analysis
• Business Metrics
• Core Loop
• Target Audience
• User Interface
3. Closing Thoughts

15. Part 2:
Analysis
Now that everything is defined, a deeper
look at how the interactions should reveal
some insights.

16. Business Metrics Analysis:
Onboarding
• The UI is overwhelming for a new user because it
contains many references to locked mechanics
• The overview that already exists could be a great
place to start users if it had a few more visual aids
• Almost every UI element is text, pictures and
icons are much easier to map out

17. Business Metrics Analysis:
Continued
Active Users
• This is primarily a function of
the quality of the core loop,
see Part 2 for more details.
• Research question: Are users
quitting because they've
gotten bored, or because
they've succeeded at
improving their habits?
Weekly Completed Tasks
• This is an easily accessible
metric, but other metrics
probably offer more insight
• Median age of active tasks
shows procrastination
• Percent of weekly tasks
completed filters user
variance in task subdivision

18. Core Loop Analysis
• Strength: it does loop!
• Problem: Monetization
is outside of core loop
• Notable: loop can be
short circuited
• Problem: short
circuiting loop cuts out
all challenge

19. Core Loop Analysis:
Monetization
• Users don't naturally think about supporting the
devs during the course of a session
• Putting a reminder in the core loop doesn't mean
forcing users to pay to play
• Example: Let users tweak their avatar from the
equipment UI.This lets them unlock options to
match their costume while considering what new
gear to equip.

20. Shorting the Loop
• Users will short circuit
the core loop by
creating trivial tasks
(but not marking them)
• This natural user
tendency cuts challenge
out of the core loop
(red arrows)

21. Shorting the Loop (Cont.)
• This is more dire than
simple cheating!
• In experiences that lack
challenge, rewards
quickly get taken for
granted
• Habitica will serve its
users better when it
better holds them
accountable

22. Shorting the Loop
(Solutions)
• Remove Fix Character
Values
• Official trading system will
bolster social interaction
• Handle bugs through
support tickets
• Remove difficulty select
from task creation
• Blue/Red tasks does this
just fine already

23. Target Audience Analysis
• Currently, Habitica is positioning as a productivity
app similar to Reminders or Evernote
• Instead, Habitica should position as a serious
game such as Pokemon Go or Lumosity
• Many current features are dead weight for productivity
apps
• Current users already think of Habitica as a game
• Corporate has many Clubs type players (see Pt3)

24. Target Audience Analysis
(Pt2)
• Habitica seems to have difficulty resonating with Clubs and
Spades type players
• Mechanics that can appeal to Spades players:
• Daily bonuses for randomly selected tasks (CD7)
• A deeper class system (CD3)
• Mechanics that can appeal to Clubs players:
• Quest races
• More fanfare for Challenge winners (CD2)

25. Target Audience Analysis
(Pt3)
• Caution! Clubs types players can prey upon Hearts
and Diamonds players (the current majority of the
playerbase) making the experience frustrating for
them
• Spades players tend to be tougher/less interesting
prey, so having a strong base of them will help keep
Clubs types under control

26. User Interface Analysis
• Move Party and Quest info to main bar, Guilds are
the main persistent social interaction now
• Keeping quests front and center moves the game
away from feeling like an exp grind
• Adding the party name to the interface helps
users feel ownership and belonging to their party
*mockup made from screen caps and images from the wiki

27. UI Analysis (Continued)
• The menu is made more difficult to navigate due
to its many terminal branches
• Equipment, Customize Avatar, and Backgrounds
can be consolidated
• Market, Pets, and Mounts can be consolidated
(consider a default "hide unobtained" option)
• Time Travelers and Seasonal Shop can be
consolidated

28. Outline
1. Strategy Dashboard
2. Analysis
3. Closing Thoughts

29. Part 3:
Closing Thoughts
• Group Plans should probably be upgraded
Guild features
• Having score formulae posted too publicly
encourages players to game the systems
• Twice the Fibonacci sequence (in days)
might merit more research as a rewards