I had recently written a twitter thread on gamification/streaks on Insight Timer, a meditation app. Turning it into a blogpost

/threadstarts

Most apps don’t let you continue your streak unless you complete the task.

There were times when after meditating for 15 mins if the session was for 20 mins, I would just let the clock continue till the task completed.

Why? Because I wanted to see which days I was meditating.

In the app developer’s mind, the reward (adding to your streak) should be possible only if you really complete your task.

While for me the JTBD was to use the app as a tracker for the days I meditated.

There was obviously a disconnect.

Hence I found it interesting that Insight timer now lets you mark your session as ‘finished’ even before the session actually ends.

And it also adds to your streak.

Data points they might have used:

  1. People who keep abandoning sessions midway do so because they choose a session longer than their level. Hence it is fair if they want to mark their session as complete if they do X% of the session.

  2. They must have run an A/B and seen that people who get their partially completed sessions counted as finished added to their streaks, continue to come back to maintain their streak. They also do X meditations/ week vs the control.

  3. Finally, meditation even partially done > not doing at all. And you should reward your users for coming back every day even for the sake of maintaining a streak/gamification.

I found this decision interesting and wonder if other apps will follow what Insight Timer has done.

/end