Gamifying Project Management
Responsive Website Design
Contracted by Leantime.io, I led a team to re-design their main software platform with the intention of increasing user engagement and retention while staying true to company values.
Role
Project Manager
Designer
Researcher
Timeline
2 Weeks
Tools
PROJECT SCOPE
So, What is Leantime?
Leantime is a startup Project Management platform,
"A system for the non-project manager."
The idea is simple: most Project Management systems are overbearing and intimidating to casual users. Leantime allows people with non-Project Manager roles to still organize their projects without using all their valuable time.
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Our UX Opportunity
After an initial call with our client, Leantime CTO Marcel Foralon, we were able to get a better understanding of his goals and how we could help to solve them.
PROBLEM
Leantime's concern was fairly simple, how can they increase business on the platform?
CHALLENGE
We first needed to define our scope, and then identify a specific path to focus on and solve for.
APPROACH
We chose to concentrate on how we might keep users engaged and motivated while on the platform
SOLUTION
Our answer was a fun, "game-like" environment to subtly distract from the boredom of work and make it feel exciting.
A Peek at the Final Prototype
Take a look at where we ended up, and then dive into the details of how we got there.
Motivational
Messaging
Time-Based
Points System
Progress
Tracking
Gamified
Elements
Our Framework to Learn
RESEARCH
So how did we get to those solutions? Following a grounded approach and Design process, we spent time at each stage to establish a solid foundation we could continue to build upon. Our first step was to conduct Research and gather data to gain an understanding of users' experiences with Project Management software.
Research was essential in order to define the "WHY", and ensure we solved for real needs
User Interviews
We identified the most effective form of research would be to speak with real users of Project Management software. We were ok with speaking to people who had used a variety of platforms and not just Leantime.
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Target Audience
People who utilize Project Management Software, but are not project managers
We chose to concentrate on these users and ruled out anyone who was a primary Project Manager in their role. The Individual Contributors, i.e. the people who input data, were our main focus.
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Interviews Conducted
6
Industries Represented
12
Platforms Worked With
Jason M.
“I’m encouraged to update projects, but it usually takes motivation to input work”
Ryan L.
“I enjoy having transparency about what others are working on”
Yvonne S.
“Visibility from a project perspective is one of the most important things to me”
Demystifying the Data
Identify Themes
After interviews, we began to gain an understanding of some common issues and feelings that were emerging. We wrote down hundreds of observations and worked to group them together by Themes we saw.
Turn Themes to Insights
With these in mind, we wanted to expand on them even further. Getting down to the essence of what each Theme really meant would help us later inform our feature ideas for design. These expanded thoughts were our Insights.
Feedback
Receiving feedback & acknowledgement is rewarding
Knowing
What's Left
Visual indicators are helpful to understand progress
Satisfying
Actions
Users feel gratification when visualizing completion
IDEATION
Fine Tuning our Focus
From the start, we assumed that users of PM platforms lacked motivation, didn't input the necessary detail, and thought the work was boring. From interviews, we learned that people had to use these platforms for work, regardless of their desire to.
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"If people have to use Project Management software for work, and regardless of want. Then we should focus on making the experience more motivating and engaging. We won't influence reasons for use, but we CAN increase retention while using."
Can Work Feel, More Like a Game?
From our insights, scope, and synthesis, the concept of "Gamification" seemed like a potential design path, and we wanted to learn a little more.
Gamification is the attempt to enhance systems, services, and activities by creating similar experiences to those when playing games in order to motivate and engage users.
Perfect! This idea clearly aligned with our focus.​
To get some context on the world of Gamified software, we researched Comparators to Leantime.
Duolingo has become the epitome of Gamified education. Their graphics, rewards system and progress tracking are best in class.
Design Inspiration
Graphical Interface
While Slack doesn't have as many Gamified elements as Duo, they're still a great example of interactions and feedback rewards.
Design Inspiration
Feedback Rewards​
Strava allowed us to focus on progress tracking and rewards. With trophies and milestones, they showed how something functional can also be fun.
Design Inspiration
Progress Tracking​
Deciding What To Build
DESIGN
With a foundation from Research and the idea of Gamification in mind, we began to ideate on how these thoughts could be translated into actual design features within Leantime.
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Graphic displays directly tied to user actions
Reward system for user achievements
Progress indicator to show status and achieve goals
To bring these features to life, we first sketched our ideas on paper, then digitized them. Iterating each time after critique and feedback.
Then we worked with Leantime to gain access to their design system, and worked to blend our ideas into their environment using Figma.
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How could we think..BIGGER
One thing we quickly realized was that none of our feature ideas could live on their own. We needed to create a feature
eco-system where everything was connected in a new "Game World"
LEANTIME, GAMIFIED
Progress Tracking
Our primary addition was a visual representation of Progress within a Project, Sprint, etc. In our version, progress is more than a simple color bar. We have a "Theme" and intervals that are related to Tasks and associated "XP". As a user completes their tasks, the XP associated will deposit and increase the progress bar status. The intervals are represented by set amounts of XP. The bar is standardized across all users’ experiences and intervals are set at 0 through 15 XP. At 15, a user would “Level” up. After each level, they would repeat the bar.
In our Gamified world, it was important to represent progress continuously. We imagine a typical sprint may have any number of “levels” of XP, so users may be able to level up many times over.
XPs
An “XP” represents a unit of time. It was important to keep time as part of the system, but we didn't want it to be obvious to users. By removing the word "Time", we were able to introduce XPs as an achievable mark of motivation. Each task in a project would be assigned a “Proposed” amount of time it should be completed in. This would register on the Progress Bar as Tasks are completed.
Themes
Within the Bar, progress intervals would be represented by “Themes”. In our example, the Theme is a House being built. At the end, a completed House. We envision eventually having multiple themes available on the platform for users to choose between. Themes would be based at the Project level, so any sprints or associated pieces below that would use the same Theme within them.
Trophies
When Progress reaches 15 XP, that level is completed. At that point, the House would become a "Trophy". Each time a Trophy is earned, it would be deposited in the users “Trophy Room”. A collection of these allows users to track progress at a level higher than Sprints or Projects. This gives an entire universe of progress tracking across Projects, Months and even Years.
TESTING
A Focus on Qualitative
One of the first conversations we had about testing was How to measure results.
We determined it would be most effective to focus on Qualitative Data vs. Quantitative
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Our Goal was to increase engagement, not reduce task completion times​
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We weren't measuring task completion, so "Success Rate" didn't apply
By asking in-depth questions and taking observational notes, we were able to understand what testers noticed as they went, and how they were thinking.
We ran an initial round of testing with Five Testers, made changes, and
ran an additional round with five new testers.
How We Tested
With our Figma prototype in hand, we needed to test and gain valuable feedback ASAP.
We created scenarios and tasks for our five testers to accomplish.
It was important to test all aspects of our design, but we felt that the most important are would be the overall Progress bar and comprehension of Task Completion > XPs > Progress Bar Movement.
"Could testers understand the relationship between completing a task, gaining XP, and the Theme (House being built)?"
Learning from Testing
Only looking at moving To-Do Card's
One of the first things we noticed when testing was that users were so focused on moving their To-Do cards across the Kanban board, that they weren't noticing the changes to the XP or House on their progress bar.
Focus called to Progress Bar area
To solve for this, we added an animated message that "Took Over" the progress bar area. This drew attention, and only lasted a second, so eyeballs would stay there and notice changes.
Allowed users to understand XP relationship
With this change, Users now looked up and could see their XP level increase, which allowed them to understand the correlation of completing a task and gaining the related XP amount.
Now able to add messaging to indicate progress and explain interval status
In addition, we now had the freedom to add additional messages to indicate Progress along the Theme. We chose simple messages below House build stages that allowed the user to know exactly where they were at.
Design Considerations
It was important that key decisions about our features were made before we went too far in implementation. We spent a lot of time thinking through these to ensure we were intentional about any changes we made.
TAKEAWAYS
Well, What Did We Learn?
Micro-interactions (Like Progress intervals) were rarely noticed if nothing called a users' attention to them. Testers were focused on moving items and didn't notice changes.​
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Larger animations in Progress Bar area to draw attention prior to transitions
Gaining a trophy at the end of a level wasn't obvious, to anyone
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​​​Add animation to completion of levels and have themed trophies "deposited" visually into Trophy Room
XPs were quickly learnable, but would need more explanation to have users understand them.
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​​​Tool Tips to explain theory behind XP values. Animation of "XP" deposited onto Progress Bar when task completed
Conclusion
At the outset of this project, our goal as a design team was to engage users on the platform in order to increase engagement and motivation.
After presenting to our client, they were overwhelming impressed with the scale and thought, especially considering the timeline. They especially appreciated the depth of ideas as well as well as the thorough research.
Our client plans to look at future implementations directly related to this project.
While it was fun to design for Gamification, what we really were able to achieve was an effective solution for the challenge we faced.
We created a rewards based system to incentivize progress achievements in Project Management, allowing current and future Leantime users to enjoy their time spent on the platform.
Meet The Team
Nick Rotondi
Dan David
