A ladder worth climbing

A ladder worth climbing

Most badges in apps are wallpaper. You get one for opening the app, another for opening it again, and after a while you stop seeing them. I'd rather an app had no badges at all than a pile like that.

Today we signed off the design for badges and titles on a new app we're building, and changed the rules behind them. The visuals were the easy part. Most of the thinking went into whether people could trust what a badge says.

What makes a step mean something

A ladder only works if each rung says something true about the person standing on it. That shaped a few decisions.

Only real contributions count. Anything that's been removed, or isn't out yet, doesn't move you up.

Showing up isn't rewarded on its own. Points come from how other people respond to what you add, and no single contribution can earn without limit. One lucky moment shouldn't carry someone up the whole ladder.

Each badge explains itself. Tap it and you see how it's earned and how close you are to the next step. Just how it works, with no marketing copy dressed up as rules.

And the badges themselves are plain. Flat, no shine, no shadow. The meaning should come from the step, not the effect.

A title is a record, a badge is a reading

We split two ideas that often get blurred together. A title is permanent. Once you've earned it, it stays, even if you're less active later. A badge shows where you stand now.

That split matters more than it looks. Titles respect history. Badges stay honest about the present. Neither has to pretend to be the other.

Changing the rules without pulling the floor away

Changing how points work is the risky part. Do it quietly and some people find their standing has changed with no idea why. Apply it only to new activity and the people who joined first end up judged by rules nobody else plays by.

So the change comes with a recalculation for everyone. Every person's points and badges are worked out again under the new rules, the same way for all of them. Titles people already earned are kept. And before anything is applied, there's a before and after view, so we can see what moves first.

Points can still go down for some people under the new rules. That's the honest cost of fixing a points system after the fact. What we didn't want is anyone losing a title they'd earned.

Where a ladder doesn't belong

Not every product needs one. If the main thing people do is private, or a one-off, ranking them adds pressure and very little else. Ladders can also pull people toward chasing the next rung instead of doing the thing itself. Pointing the rewards at contributions other people value helps, but I don't think that tension ever fully goes away.

Keep the promise

A badge is a small promise about what someone did. When the rules change, the promise should still hold.

More about the studio at mindfull.studio.