Case study

Using our case study example of Waterbear, we see a number of these storytelling elements alive in much the same way as Duolingo. The Waterbear founding team wanted to offer an experience that was gamified for users, particularly because they felt this would help balance some of the heavier aspects of using a mental health app. Though gamification works and can promote engagement, as we’ve seen with Duolingo, it also has the capacity to detract from an app experience. The founding team found early on that their first iteration of the product actually wasn’t resonating well with end users because they felt the gamification was too lighthearted for what the app was intended to do. The feedback was overwhelmingly that although they appreciated that the app “encouraged” you as if you were playing a game, it felt tone deaf. Users were, after all, not playing a game but instead sharing deep, emotional, and sometimes overwhelming topics with a conversational...