User Retention Design
How do you encourage users to return to your product or service?
THE CHALLENGE:
How can Lime increase user retention rate through their mobile in-app experience?
THE SOLUTION:
Engage users by gamifying the user experience and identify which “problem” the product/service solves. And, of course, delight users from the moment they download the app in order to drive retention.
THE PROCESS:
In early 2018, I watched brightly colored bikes appear outside the office building where I worked. At the time, I was commuting to work by bike and so naturally I was intrigued. However, after an initial test run, I found a few issues with the experience and over the course of a year, I watched these bikes remain mostly unused. I wanted to identify some important UI challenges that users face when interacting with lime bicycles (and now motorized scooters).
Three major challenges with the mobile experience:
UI experience does not match the brand style
What user problem does this service solve?
No incentive to consistently return to this service
Focus on the solution
Bright Colors
Make an impression! This is the first thing users will see when they open the app. I chose colors that match the bikes (and scooters) to smoothly link between the physical and digital worlds. The color palette I selected focused on bright and snappy colors to associate joy and excitement with the brand.
User Stats
If we asked users, “why would you consider riding a lime bike or scooter?”. We might get responses like, “I’m interested in getting in shape”, or “I want to help reduce carbon emissions”, or “I feel like I should WANT to be healthy”. These responses center around self-improvement. The Apple watch and Fitbit have taught us that we love seeing personal metrics progress (gamification). Ride stats will let users own their path to personal achievement.
Score Rewards
To build the self-improvement journey for this mobile UI experience, we need some incentives! Rome wasn’t built in a day! The importance of reaching achievements and goals is critical to the success rate of user retention and ARR for the bottom line. We see this in products like Peleton, cash back rewards, and video games. By including a reward center and achievement badges, users will collect incentives to return after each completed ride and will help drive user retention.