Knowt Streaks, a Quizlet Alternative
Motivating learners to consistently hit their flashcard goals
Overview
Knowt Streaks help learners stay motivated by setting and completing defined goals on Knowt, a flashcard app similar to Quizlet. Streaks strive to increase app retention and daily quiz completions. It also allows students to have a space to socialize and share with friends in a similar way to Anki Heatmaps and Wordle scores.
The CEO approached me to research and propose a streaks feature to be introduced within the existing app to increase retention by helping users maintain consistent, daily practice.
Role
UX Research, Product Design
Duration
2 weeks
Project Context
Knowt is a free Quizlet alternatives with a few extra bells-and-whistles. Knowt's mascot is Kai, a lovable, mischievous character that helps personify AI features and bring life to Knowt. Knowt Streaks hopes to help users maintain consistency with practicing daily.
Research and Discovery
Discovering What Learners Need for Motivation User Personas
To understand the context of the project and what tools could help the app's users, we identified three main groups.
Three-in-one
All three groups shared common goals like the ability to choose whether to participate and receive notifications. They also wanted to be able to share, review, and plan through a simple calendar.
Defining the Necessary Features Journey Map
I combined the personas into a single cohesive journey map that satisfied the needs and expectations of the user groups combined.
Goldilocks Streak Not too active, not too passive
Students want an easy way to set goals, stay motivated, and share with friends. The feature should be optional, set goals by minutes or cards per day, shoutout Kai (fan favorite), and promote share-ability/flex-ability.
What Shape Will This Feature Take? Competitive Analysis
I categorized existing streak features into either an active streak or a passive streak.
Passive Streaks like Anki's Heatmap were shareable with friends, but not very useful for motivation. Active Streaks like Duolingo's Streaks were very good at motivating people to study, especially with the cute owl, notifications, and gamification. For Knowt's purposes, some of Duolingo's features were too involved; people I interviewed wanted to focus on studying and cut-to the-chase.
The feature needed to motivate users, but didn't need any gamification or excessive complexity.
Students seek an optional feature for setting goals, staying motivated, and sharing progress.
Iteration
Integrating on the Home Screen Wireframe
I explored multiple ways for this feature to appear within the app.
Putting the streaks feature as a modal above quizzes, the primary action, hides them. Putting it below risks users not ever discovering streaks. Placing streaks on the profile page was also invisible, as most users rarely visited it. The answer was to place streaks in the top bar where it is visible, non-intrusive, and doesn’t get in the way of getting to quizzes and other content.
After a quiz is taken, it was important to notify the user that they are making progress on their streak. Using Kai to tie everything together allowed the screen to not change but provide additional information.
Visualizing Passive vs. Active Streak Wireframes
A version of active and passive streaks were created to visualize what we understood users to need from the journey map.
Passive
Having a long list of streak history where users can screen record/capture promotes share-ability at the cost of additional features below it. It was copy-able, like Wordle, to show how many streak days you have. On the upside, there was space for a quick preview at the top.
Active
With active, a short calendar leaves space for other items like goals. There was also the opportunity to add a more active, informative calendar with exam dates visible.
Both
Taking up space with Kai was introduced to both since he was popular and allowed the screen to breath since it could become a dense data feature.
Key Features
Streaks Goal Setting, Sharing, & Motivating
Streaks is a non intrusive feature to motivate learners to study consistently. They can create goals that aim to complete a certain amount of cards or time per day.
The calendar lets users analyze their past results and plan for exam dates.
Integrated throughout Knowt
Streaks are present on the home screen and after the first quiz of the day. The feature needed to be optional and simple so learners could stay focused on studying.
Rewarding Learners
Streaks reward learners in small ways throughout the site and serve as reminders of the progress they are making towards their learning goals.
Reflection
I really enjoyed this passion project as I involved a heavy amount of research to inform decisions I made. From what was included in the high fidelity prototype was formed from personas to journey maps and wireframes. I got to practice integrating a feature into an existing app, using their design system, and creating graphics to gain buy-in for this feature!
Knowt Streaks, a Quizlet Alternative
Motivating learners to consistently hit their flashcard goals
Overview
Knowt Streaks help learners stay motivated by setting and completing defined goals on Knowt, a flashcard app similar to Quizlet. Streaks strive to increase app retention and daily quiz completions. It also allows students to have a space to socialize and share with friends in a similar way to Anki Heatmaps and Wordle scores.
The CEO approached me to research and propose a streaks feature to be introduced within the existing app to increase retention by helping users maintain consistent, daily practice.
Role
UX Research, Product Design
Duration
2 weeks
Project Context
Knowt is a free Quizlet alternatives with a few extra bells-and-whistles. Knowt's mascot is Kai, a lovable, mischievous character that helps personify AI features and bring life to Knowt. Knowt Streaks hopes to help users maintain consistency with practicing daily.
Research and Discovery
Discovering What Learners Need for Motivation User Personas
To understand the context of the project and what tools could help the app's users, we identified three main groups.
Three-in-one
All three groups shared common goals like the ability to choose whether to participate and receive notifications. They also wanted to be able to share, review, and plan through a simple calendar.
Defining the Necessary Features Journey Map
I combined the personas into a single cohesive journey map that satisfied the needs and expectations of the user groups combined.
Goldilocks Streak Not too active, not too passive
Students want an easy way to set goals, stay motivated, and share with friends. The feature should be optional, set goals by minutes or cards per day, shoutout Kai (fan favorite), and promote share-ability/flex-ability.
What Shape Will This Feature Take? Competitive Analysis
I categorized existing streak features into either an active streak or a passive streak.
Passive Streaks like Anki's Heatmap were shareable with friends, but not very useful for motivation. Active Streaks like Duolingo's Streaks were very good at motivating people to study, especially with the cute owl, notifications, and gamification. For Knowt's purposes, some of Duolingo's features were too involved; people I interviewed wanted to focus on studying and cut-to the-chase.
The feature needed to motivate users, but didn't need any gamification or excessive complexity.
Students seek an optional feature for setting goals, staying motivated, and sharing progress.
Iteration
Integrating on the Home Screen Wireframe
I explored multiple ways for this feature to appear within the app.
Putting the streaks feature as a modal above quizzes, the primary action, hides them. Putting it below risks users not ever discovering streaks. Placing streaks on the profile page was also invisible, as most users rarely visited it. The answer was to place streaks in the top bar where it is visible, non-intrusive, and doesn’t get in the way of getting to quizzes and other content.
After a quiz is taken, it was important to notify the user that they are making progress on their streak. Using Kai to tie everything together allowed the screen to not change but provide additional information.
Visualizing Passive vs. Active Streak Wireframes
A version of active and passive streaks were created to visualize what we understood users to need from the journey map.
Passive
Having a long list of streak history where users can screen record/capture promotes share-ability at the cost of additional features below it. It was copy-able, like Wordle, to show how many streak days you have. On the upside, there was space for a quick preview at the top.
Active
With active, a short calendar leaves space for other items like goals. There was also the opportunity to add a more active, informative calendar with exam dates visible.
Both
Taking up space with Kai was introduced to both since he was popular and allowed the screen to breath since it could become a dense data feature.
Key Features
Streaks Goal Setting, Sharing, & Motivating
Streaks is a non intrusive feature to motivate learners to study consistently. They can create goals that aim to complete a certain amount of cards or time per day.
The calendar lets users analyze their past results and plan for exam dates.
Integrated throughout Knowt
Streaks are present on the home screen and after the first quiz of the day. The feature needed to be optional and simple so learners could stay focused on studying.
Rewarding Learners
Streaks reward learners in small ways throughout the site and serve as reminders of the progress they are making towards their learning goals.
Reflection
I really enjoyed this passion project as I involved a heavy amount of research to inform decisions I made. From what was included in the high fidelity prototype was formed from personas to journey maps and wireframes. I got to practice integrating a feature into an existing app, using their design system, and creating graphics to gain buy-in for this feature!