How might we improve engagement in 9 early-stage mobile apps?

2020 | Duration: 5 months | Client: Early-stage mobile apps as part of an incubator | Location: USA, India, Vietnam, Kenya

Role: Behavioral Researcher responsible for end-to-end for 5 of 9 applications, designing and conducting research, analysis, and workshop facilitation, worked with Junior Product Designer, Senior Graphic Designer, and Engagement Manager

Problem

9 early-stage mobile applications facing user engagement issues including low-course completion, feature exploration, and low time spent on the platform

Process

Identifying the problem

For each application, we used a three-pronged approach to identify the problem:

  1. Doing an expert evaluation based on our engagement framework

  2. Getting the entrepreneur’s perspective on where they seen the product going

  3. Using quantitative data to identify where users drop off

We then hypothesized reasons for this problem based on data, patterns observed or stories heard. And identified previously tried methods to solve the problem. Eg. feature release or iterations to determine what worked.

The engagement framework helped narrow in on the problem

Framework with six dimensions to measure the overall engagement levels for each application

Example of assessment dimensions of Feedback & Rewards for an application

Conducting Research

Why these methods? Given the short duration of the project, we selected these methods to give us quick insights into: the overall goals, context, and ecosystem of the user (ecosystem map), systematically understanding what makes them feel rewarded and how they receive feedback (picture-cards), and receiving app-specific feedback on what they find most useful (bidding games)

Sample: n = 90, 10 users per application. It included: young working professionals for a mental health platform, local drivers for a financial education platform, software engineering students for a coding platform, and so on

Ecosystem mapping: Understanding the user’s goals related to the application, the information they have about it, and whom they interact with daily

Picture-cards: Have them share stories with prompts that give us insight into how they receive feedback, their sources of motivation and reward


Bidding Games: In order to understand how users prioritize features by asking them to bit on features after they view a product demo

Co-creation Workshop for Solutions

Using insights from our research and engagement framework prioritized the problem areas and suggested behavioral design principles that would help improve engagement. I co-facilitated 9 in-person and virtual workshops with entrepreneurs, product managers, and data scientists. Our engagement solutions were customized for each application.

Here is a quick look at one of the apps I was responsible for. The app was a mental health platform

Result: ~30% increase in user engagement across applications

Each of the 9 applications implemented solutions at different fidelities and reported increases across user engagement, time spent on the platform, retention, and even feature exploration. Below are some of the implemented solutions

Solution for mental health application: Leveraging commitment and goal setting devices to strengthen the initial intent of the users

Solution for financial education application: Providing meaningful feedback that motivates and guides people is provided to boost their self-image and encourages further use of the task