How Duolingo uses challenges and other gamification features to drive engagement and retention. Duolingo's framework involves setting a high-level goal, giving users visual feedback on their progress, and using external tools like push notifications and emails to drive them back to the Duolingo app to complete their goal. Duolingo is known as the gold standard for gamification, and this framework shows why.

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How Duolingo
drives retention
with gamification

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Duolingo improved
next-day retention
from 47% to 55% using
gami
fi
cation patterns.
Challenges are their
core gami
fi
cation
feature.
Source: Duolingo co-founder Luis von Ahn via Businessweek

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Challenges turn the intimidating task of
learning a language into structured
collections of sub-goals.

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Duolingo’s framework
for challenges
1. User chooses a high-level goal
2. Give visual motivation to make
daily progress
3. Use external reminders to
drive users back to the app
Source: Duolingo associate product manager Zan Gilani via The Drum

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1. User chooses a
high-level goal
The highest-level goal is as
simple as “learn Vietnamese”

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They also drive users toward smaller
challenges such as committing to practicing
every X days. Note that they explain why
they’re asking for this commitment.

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2. Give visual
motivation to make
daily progress
The “goal gradient” concept says that the
closer a user gets to a goal, the less likely
they are to abandon it.

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Duolingo also has a robust “economy”
inspired by video games. Rewards are
redeemed for various in-app things like a
“streak freeze” which resets a broken streak.

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3. Use external
reminders to drive
users back to the app
Duolingo is somewhat infamous for the
volume of noti
fi
cations. But they’ve
validated this approach through years of
testing, with 23.5 hours being ideal.
Source: Duolingo associate product manager Zan Gilani via The Drum

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The tone in their noti
fi
cations is also
somewhat polarizing, but in a world of
crowded, noisy inboxes a little personality is
key to standing out.

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