Day 27 - Reward System in UX

Jagadeesh P explains how reward systems drive engagement and retention through psychology principles like Pavlovian conditioning and Self-Determination Theory. Points, leaderboards, and variable rewards work, but apps without them see 30-40% early drop-offs. Duolingo and Strava show how to build sustainable motivation without addiction.
Chapters
Without any reward, nothing happens in this world. We do only two things to achieve something. Like let's say either we have to get reward, we will do it or punishment is there, we will do it. It only works on this. 2. How do you keep a design? How do you create a product which can make the user get reward and start using it more? Because ultimately your objective is to make your user use your product for a quite long time without having that problem of disengagement and at the same time providing the proper reward for them. In this video I'm going to be telling you how UX can be working with a proper reward system and what is the concept, the background behind it and a case study. We will see an example and how we can infuse it into the design. Because without doing this kind of a proper reward System, more than 30 to 40% of users are dropping off by just after using first or one or two times more than that. Right? So this video is going to be very helpful for you when you're designing a product like that. So let's jump into this topic now. We are now in the week four of endocrine system guys on the day 26. Thank you so much for connecting here. We are going to see reward system in ux. What is this? Reward is a fairly simple one. Motivation is equal to internal energy of your inner user. Right. And the reward system makes your user engaged, it helps him get the dopamine and it also makes them anticipate some kind of a reward available. So you are building a journey for your user. And extrinsic intrinsic motivators like let's say if your product is making them motivate a lot, then that is called extrinsic motivation. But if a person is getting internal motivated by after using your product, that's a true, true, true motivation which is going to be more and more sustainable. Right? And sustainable I would say. So your ultimate objective is to sustainable. Your ultimate objective is to create that intrinsic motivation for your user. So they keep coming to your product again and again. Consistency over the addiction. Clear. What are the background of this? Actually this is rooted in psychology. Like let's say the Pablo's conditioning and the Maslow's hierarchy. You will see the hierarchy and reward. And everything is very, very common in our common world of like let's say usage of products, psychology, marketing, everything. Right. But the point is how we can able to use it in ux. You can use it in UX flows by creating a gamification, by creating a reward by creating a points, by creating a leaderboard by also creating a lot more different way leaderboard points. Like let's say, like let's say you can give cashbacks like let's say you can give them recognition, right? You can give reward in a very very different format. Like in the sense the reward system based on your application what you're going to send. Like let's say if you're building an LMS this will be more appropriate when you give a leaderboard for them. If you're building a games. Like let's say if you're building a lessons it will be better if you can give points if it's an investment, if it's a fintech it would be better if you give cash backs and offers. If it's an event like let's say if you're a celebrity, if you're achieving it's a community, you can give some kind of recognition. So you can decide for your product and service what kind of a reward your customer will be expecting. You can take this application called Duolingo Strava Habitasia. So these are all very easy applications. You can just install in your smartphones and see how they have created this reward system. You can simply try benchmarking that data for your own product and service. So the core framework, what I want to tell you is self determination theory. This is actually available in the psychology. Like let's say, I would say this is not very detailedly relevant for us but this is where the theory comes from. You can just go to ChatGPT and Google and see what is this self determination theory for? Because this will help you to understand why people have been kept this topic in the psychology and how it is rooting out to the brain reward system and why certain products people were not able to ignore Even after using a lot of time you will get a better understanding. Okay, so this aligns users with their product purpose. This is the most, most interesting and important thing. Okay, this is a little bit of background about it. You must have understood the importance of it. So this keeps the user emotionally invested. This builds a progress behavior driven design. This strengthens the positive reinforcement and boost the retention and satisfaction. This mainly, mainly encourages mastery over dependency. See you have a better control of the user's reward system of him using your product and service. This is exactly what it is really meant for. Okay, what are the key elements now? The first key element is having a clear goal and micro achievement. Let's say even if they are running okay, you need to give like let's say Miles reached something like that. A small micro reward, right? A visible progress. Like let's say you've reached 10k steps, right? Still 2k required, right? So you provide a little bit of journey so that your customer is very clearly understanding what he wants. Third, positive reinforcements at the right moment. Like let's say whenever some difficulty is there, like let's say you give them a positivity, you know, during that particular process, there is no option, the user has to go through a little bit of pain. But where you can able to give a little positivity. Even in our programs I've recorded certain modules during our one day, one week project, which even 12th standard students can do, even college first year students can do, even career transition and people can do. Even people who are having 15 years of design experience can do. For all the people I've designed that. So the point here is how these people can get advantage out of it. How these people can get a reward even by having a no knowledge in design. So I have created exactly the positive reinforcement to encourage them to tell them to try their small activities and then to get regain the confidence of it. So something like that. You can also plan in your own product and service to keep your user better. Random variable rewards. You can able to give a randomized reward sometimes. It can also help you build a more variety of product. Like let's say some of the users will not be very happy with your reward. Some of the users will be little happy, some of the users will be very happy. You never know. You never have a full control of what reward system is going to motivate your user. In those cases you can keep a variable system like points, cashback, reward, everything. And you can think about long term badges like let's say you can give like let's say badges you can give best retail, best learner, best gamer, something like the milestone, right? So you can create that based on your users, what they're having. So ultimately why are we doing this? This helps users to hit their dopamine rewards, not the clear outcome. Why? Because outcome will be a journey. It takes a lot of time and the user also knows. It takes a lot of time and you also know. But without keeping the user's dopamine hit and keeping that engagement, you will not be able to help them reach their journey. So for making them reach the long term journey, you need to activate dopamine. That is the neuroscience behind it. Over rewarding also kills curiosity, surprise plus delay builds stronger engagement and consistency builds neural reliability, right? This is Very, very important. You need to showcase to your customer. Okay? And design rewards ethically, not addictively so. Design can make you reward in a more more ethical way. You should not make the user addict for your product. That is the exact neuroscience behind it. And I also wanted to tell you DM Motivate. I can able to redesign your reward system with empathy after looking at your screens and tell you. Because without reward you cannot design a user flow. Without reward you cannot design a UX flow system for your customer journey map. Without reward you cannot build any product or application. If you do that, then your user end up and then starting it after one or two times or maybe after one or two months. This is very, very important. After you understand this concept. So go and implement it in any one of your products and use this case studies also which I give you which is like Duolingo's Travan habits. Here you will get a better understanding for it. I'll see you tomorrow in another system which is exactly very important called habit loop and retention design which is going to be a continuation of.
More from Jagadeesh

Comment “ME” if you want to join the next upcoming hackathon — we’ll send you the registration link.

Comment “ME” if you want to join the next upcoming hackathon — we’ll send you the registration link.








