Led UX/UI redesign to simplify learning missions and boost participation for Breakthru CRM’s customer community.
Overview
At Breakthru, a CRM platform for educational and professional communities, I led the redesign of the engagement experience within the customer community hub.
Our goal was to drive repeat participation and active learning by embedding gamification principles into the platform — all while maintaining scalability across multiple customer types.
I owned the full design process, from user research and ideation to prototyping and usability testing.
Problem
Despite strong onboarding numbers, user engagement with the platform's key learning activities was low. Users didn’t complete missions or return consistently, which negatively affected both learning outcomes and product adoption.
After reviewing internal data and conducting user research, we uncovered three key challenges:
Lack of clear motivation to complete tasks or return regularly.
No visual feedback or progress tracking, which made users feel disconnected.
Limited scalability, making it difficult to adapt engagement strategies across customer types.
Research & Discovery
To understand the root causes of disengagement, I conducted:
10 in-depth user interviews with active and lapsed users.
Competitor analysis focused on gamified platforms like Duolingo and Habitica.
A survey to 100+ community members across 4 customer groups.
A review of behavioral analytics to identify drop-off points and underperforming tasks.
Key Insights
70% of users felt there was “no clear reason” to complete missions.
60% said they didn’t know how their actions contributed to the community.
45% wanted social components like team challenges or leaderboards.
68% expressed interest in both digital rewards (badges) and real-world recognition.
From the data, it became clear that we needed to create:
Immediate feedback and clear progress indicators.
Layered motivation, combining personal and social incentives.
A repeatable framework for different audiences.
Wireframing
I created low-fidelity wireframes in Figma to explore several engagement mechanics:
Progress trackers for daily and weekly missions.
Leaderboards for individuals and teams.
A Daily Trivia module to create habit-forming loops.
These wireframes helped us quickly test concepts and align with cross-functional stakeholders.
Prototyping & Testing
I built interactive prototypes and conducted usability tests with 12 users. We focused on:
Clarity of the mission flow.
Effectiveness of Daily Trivia in creating repeat behavior.
Emotional reactions to rewards and feedback mechanisms.
Feedback helped us refine:
The layout of the challenge module for mobile use.
How rewards were communicated (e.g., badge animations vs. static icons).
Personalization of tasks based on prior user actions.
Results & Impact
+45% increase in task completion
Clear incentives and visual progress made users more likely to follow through on actions.
+30% boost in weekly engagement
Leaderboards, daily challenges, and rewards created reasons to return.
Modular design scaled across 3 customer types
The framework was adopted in multiple community segments with minimal dev changes.
What I Learned
This project pushed me to grow in several key areas:
Designing for Motivation is Different Than Usability
It’s not enough for something to be clear — it has to be compelling. I learned to think beyond usability and focus on the emotional triggers that drive users to act.User Research is Most Valuable When Paired with Data
Combining interviews with behavioral analytics helped me understand not just what users were saying, but what they were actually doing — and where those insights aligned or conflicted.Modularity = Scalability
Thinking in systems — not just screens — allowed us to create a gamification framework that could be reused by other teams and adapted for different user types with minimal effort.Small Touches Make Big Impact
Features like animations on badge unlocks or visual celebration moments weren’t costly to build but made a significant difference in how users emotionally connected to the experience.