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Award Badges - Gamification · Mobile · Enterprise UX
CREATING
ACHIEVEMENTS
LEARNERS ACTUALLY
CARE ABOUT
I focused on rebuilding the way learners get awarded, transforming boring
corporate milestones into something that feels rewarding, motivating, and
genuinely valuable for their professional growth.
Role
Product Designer - Mobile
Focus
Mobile badge awarding flow,
search & filtering, confirmation
states
Company
Schoox - Enterprise Learning
Platform
Scope
Mobile awarding experience
(badge creation deferred)
5 min read
Award Badges - redesigned mobile awarding flow
Built mobile-first and aligned to Schoox's broader design system; so awarding a badge feels fast on a phone and premium to receive.
Overview
Turning corporate milestones into
achievements that feel earned
My goal was to make the whole process
feel lightweight and fast, but still make the
achievement feel genuinely important.
I started by digging into our mobile app to figure out exactly why giving out a
badge felt like such a chore and why the rewards themselves felt so low-value on
a small screen.
Award Badges - mobile-first recognition
The Challenge
Rewards that felt like noise, not recognition
Problem To Solve
Right now, managers see the app's rewards as pointless
digital noise. Because the workflow is so clunky, they
can't hand out badges in the moment when a learner
actually does something great. On top of that, trying to
search through hundreds of badge types and thousands of employees on a mobile screen is completely unmanageable. Instead of making learners feel proud and motivated, the current mobile setup just feels like an administrative headache that nobody wants to use.
Discovery Phase
Mapping the mobile journey,
notice to Badge Awarded
I mapped out the entire mobile journey; from the exact second a manager
notices a learner doing an amazing job to the final Badge Awarded screen.
To get there, I focused on three main pillars:
01
Accessibility
Broke the massive badge library down
into simple, searchable categories.
Instead of forcing managers to scroll
endlessly through a giant list on their
phones, they can now find the exact tier
or type of reward they need in seconds.
02
Precision
Built smart filtering tools that let
managers hand out a badge to a whole
group or specific salon team all at once.
This completely solved the biggest
headache of the old app, where
managers had to click on employees
one-by-one to reward a team win.
03
Validation
Optimized the visual assets specifically
for mobile card layouts. I made sure
high-quality details — like crisp
gradients and sharp borders — looked
beautiful and polished, ensuring that
even on a tiny phone screen, winning a
badge felt like a massive milestone.
Searchable badge library — categorized for mobile
Research · Gathering Insights
Generic participation trophies don't work
Research from our core team confirmed a
major hunch: generic participation trophies
don't work. Learners just ignore them.
While our clients liked the idea of gamification, when we looked at competitors
like Docebo, we saw the exact same flaw over and over; badges just sat in a
static, boring list where nobody looked at them, offering zero real-time value to
managers.
We also noticed that managers were only handing out badges for boring,
mandatory HR completions rather than using them to celebrate great work. This
completely backed up my decision to focus purely on a fast, mobile-first
experience. If we wanted managers to recognize high-value behavior, we had to
give them a tool that let them do it the exact second they saw it happen.
Competitive teardown — Docebo
Emerging Themes
01
Scarcity & Status
If a badge is going to look impressive on
a learner's mobile profile, the design
has to make it obvious. The UI needs a
massive visual distinction between a
basic participation mark and a high-tier,
hard-earned achievement.
02
Awarding Velocity
Managers don't have time to waste on
their phones. They need to filter
through thousands of employees and
dozens of badge types instantly. If the
search-and-assign flow takes more than
a few taps, managers will simply
abandon the feature.
03
Instant Feedback
Mobile interactions happen in a flash.
The second a manager hits send, the
success screen needs to be visually
undeniable so they know the badge
went through and don't accidentally
send it twice.
How Might We
How might we build a fast, intuitive mobile layout that lets managers easily
search through employees and hand out badges on the go, making real-
time recognition feel like a genuine career win rather than a digital gimmick?
User Testing · Testing the Solution
We tested how managers find and hand out badges
Since we purposely pushed badge creation to a future
update, our user testing focused purely on how managers
find and hand out badges, and how learners view them.
We ran usability tests with managers using mobile prototypes to make sure our
search and filtering flows actually made sense on a phone. Once the feature
officially launched, we used UX Cam to track real-world behavior and see exactly
how frequently - and how easily - managers were using the flow in their daily
routines.
Mobile Awarding Learnings
01
Visual Hierarchy
Insight
Watching managers try to tap and select over 100 individual learners one-by-one on a
mobile screen showed just how tedious and frustrating the old layout was.
Action
Rebuilt the filtering logic to support fast multi-selection. Now, managers can search and
select entire locations, organizational units, or custom groups to hand out a team reward
instantly with just a couple of taps.
02
Progression Tracking
Insight
Because the previous confirmation screen was too subtle, managers weren't sure if the
badge had actually been sent, which led to them tapping the button again and accidentally
awarding duplicate rewards.
Action
Paired up with our Design Systems team to build a bold, polished, and incredibly satisfying
"Badge Awarded!" confirmation animation. This gave managers instant visual confirmation
that their action worked, completely stopping duplicate entries.
03
Social Sharing
Insight
Badges were split across confusing, separate tabs for "System," "Corporate," and "Group"
rewards, forcing managers to jump back and forth just to find what they wanted.
Action
Rolled everything into a single, unified mobile view that shows all available badges by
default, adding smart, quick-tap filters at the top so managers can narrow down the list
instantly without switching screens.
Before / After · Badges Screen
Before
Badges screen
After
Badges screen
Impact · The Results
From ignored tool to core of
how managers run their salons
The redesign completely turned the Award Badges feature around, shifting it
from a clunky, ignored tool into a core part of how managers run their salons.
By cleaning up the mobile layout and aligning it with our broader design system,
we built an engine that actually works on a phone. Instead of feeling like an
administrative chore, giving out rewards became fast, meaningful, and genuinely
motivating for the stylists on the floor. Post-launch, the new mobile experience
delivered three major wins across the enterprise:
Boosted Training
Adoption
Learners started engaging heavily with
their certification tracks. Because
winning a badge finally felt premium and
professionally valuable, employees were
significantly more motivated to complete
their training.
Reduced Operational
Friction
Managers could finally reward whole
teams or specific salon groups all at
once instead of hunting down employees
one-by-one. This saved massive amounts
of time on the go and stopped managers
from abandoning the feature out of
frustration.
Validated by Regional
Leadership
The new efficiency wins were actively
validated by regional administrators,
who reported that the mobile app finally
made on-the-go recognition practical,
reliable, and error-free.
What I Learned From This Project
Three principles I carried out of Award Badges
01
Simplifying logistics is the design value
When you're designing for a tight mobile screen, the hardest work isn't the final visual
layout; it's the invisible logic behind it. Figuring out how to make a heavy task like
filtering through thousands of employees feel completely effortless to a manager on the
go is where the actual design value happens.
02
Constraint prioritizes impact
Being forced to cut the 'badge creation' feature from the mobile scope was a blessing in
disguise. It allowed me to dedicate all my energy to perfecting the mobile awarding
flow; the exact part of the tool that managers actually use on the go and the true driver
of platform engagement.
03
Collaboration prevents duplication
Working hand-in-hand with the web designers and the design systems team taught me
how to keep a feature cohesive across different devices. By understanding their
technical boundaries early, we ensured the mobile experience felt like a natural
extension of the core platform without stepping on engineering constraints.
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