It’s Okay to Take a Break.
How I conceptualized healthier & monetizable streak system features and campaigns for Duolingo’s streak-motivated learners
Platforms
iOS
Deliverables
Figma Prototype
Timeline
1 month
BACKGROUND
Out of Sheer Curiosity
Many of my friends regularly share screenshots of their Duolingo Streaks on social media. It’s obvious that it’s something they are very proud of, but what if they went on vacation or were especially busy one week? Would they still return to the app?
In addition, Duolingo IPO'ed recently and needs to generate revenue more so than ever. However, only 5-6% of their monthly active users (MAU) pays for Duolingo Plus.
MY ROLE
What I Worked On
This was a solo passion project, so I handled everything from product research, user interviews, prototyping, validation testing, to financial analysis.
I worked on this project during the month of December 2021 and revisited it in April 2022.
DESIGN QUESTION
How might we retain and monetize streak-motivated learners that need to take an extended break from Duolingo?
DIVING DEEPER
Why Does Duolingo Use Streaks?
What better way to motivate individuals to learn a language than to greet them with colorful animations rooting for them every day they complete a lesson?
Duolingo uses streaks as a way to not only make learning consistent and shareable, but also delightful and fun.
EXAMPLES OF DUOLINGO STREAK GRAPHICS
MY ASSUMPTION
So Why Would Duolingo's Streak Infrastructure Need Improvement?
My hypothesis is that streaks actually make certain learners way more focused on maintaining their streaks rather than on learning languages, so if they lose their streaks, they lose conviction to learn.
What I hypothesized was happening to certain learners
HYPOTHESIS TESTING
Am I Valid?
To evaluate my hypothesis and obtain more context, I gathered data from online forums, user interviews (n=10, >D60), and behavioral concepts.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
I Am Valid!
From my research findings, I jotted down patterns I noticed and organized them into 3 use cases and journey maps to visualize pain points and identify areas of opportunity.
Introducing the Socializer, the Off-the-Grid, and the Busy-body:
LEARNER NEEDS STATEMENT
How might we make Duolingo streaks more meaningful and less urgent while maintaining their sentimental value for streak-motivated learners?
IDEATIONS
Coming Up With A Bunch Of Ideas
My following two biggest HMW questions were:
1. How might Duolingo encourage learners to return to the platform after breaking their streaks?
2. How might Duolingo help learners maintain their streaks more meaningfully?
I proposed new ideas for 3 existing Duolingo features and iterated on 4 new ideas, each evaluated based on: (1) Ease Of Implementation (2) Learner Retention (3) Revenue Potential and (4) Use Case Approval:
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Final Solutions
After doing some stategic revisions, I prototyped the final combination of features and campaigns that best matched the scope of this project:
Shop: Buy Extra Streak Freezes
For learners that need an extended break for Duolingo but don't want to give up their hard-earned streak.
Purchase up to 7 freezes at a time.
Streak Society: Buy Early Freeze Refills
Learners that achieve a 365-day streak are inducted into Duolingo's exclusive Streak Society where they receive perks like access to New App Icons, 3 Extra Streak Freezes, and VIP Status Indicators.
The 3 Extra Streak Freezes refill every 70 days for free, but in case a learner wants to take a longer break, they are able to purchase early Freeze Refills.
Streak Archives: View Old Streaks
You've just broken a streak? Fear not! You haven't lost your progress, and you can view your Top 8 streaks in Streak Archives.
Shop: Streak Extensions
Are you a busy night owl? Streak Extensions allows leaners to extend their streak deadline for the day from 11:59pm to 11:59am, the next day. Streak Extensions would cost 100 gems, and can be equipped up to 1 at a time.
Retail: Gift Card
Have people in your life that know about your Duolingo activity? They can now get you a Duolingo gift card filled with $10-25 of Duolingo credit for your birthday!
Use it for Duolingo Plus, or perhaps gems or extra streak freezes.
MEASURING SUCCESS
Business Metrics
I looked into Duolingo's financial statements (e.g. 10-K, earnings releases) to gain an understanding of their current revenue model and to loosely estimate business impact from my design solutions.
WHAT I LEARNED
Reflection
- Product design is really not linear - I rethought the scope of this project at least 5 times. Sense-making is not easy, and I always thought I was overthinking things. However, I had a few amazing mentors who helped and encouraged me to "close the loop."
- Design systems will save you time - It was challenging to design fairly consistent screens that fully matched Duolingo branding. Instead of paying for Duolingo's brand typefaces, I instead opted for free Google fonts (Nunito & Inter). I remade several screens and vector graphics in Figma.
- Big Picture: I still designed bandaid solutions - Duolingo's biggest obstacle to date is that the platform does not make its users fluent. If the platform wants people to pay for Duolingo Plus, it needs to double down on its in-app language-learning initiatives (which it is).
- If I could do things differently - If I had more time and a bigger budget, I would validate my solutions not just with user interviews but with actual field testing or digital simulations. Oftentimes, what users say and what they do end up being completely different.