Problem Discovery
⚠️ The Risk of Losing Our Best Players
Garden Joy is a home and garden design game where players complete decor Challenges inspired by real-world trends, seasons, and cultural moments.
The handcrafted approach keeps content curated and timely, but slows Challenge production, which limits engagement from top players who finish quickly and drive most revenue.
When they run out of content, they disengage, spend less, or leave the app entirely.
After completing all Live Challenges, players often lack motivation to stay engaged until the next set becomes available.
Proposed Solution
🔓 The Insight: Reuse, But Personalize
We uncovered an untapped asset: thousands of past Challenges. Resurfacing them offers fresh, meaningful content to players with no added work for the content team.
We proposed a system called Plus Challenges that would:
Unlock a continuous stream of previously run Challenges
Personalize content per user, so only unseen Challenges would be served
Deliver Challenges dynamically once a player completed all live content
Instead of creating more Challenges, we created a system that made content feel infinite.
An early concept of the feature prioritizes Live Challenges, with older ones locked until current challenges are completed.
📐 Why This Was Strategically Strong
This idea aligned perfectly with our goals:
Scalable — it didn’t require new content to be produced
Engaging — players always had something new to do
Monetizable — these Challenges could include decor, bundles, and specialty items like any other
Research Validation
🔬 Testing the Concept with High-Engagement Players
Before finalizing our direction, we tested Plus Challenges with our most active players to validate appeal, clarity, and intent to play. We shared early mocks showing:
Feed placement – how Plus Challenges would appear alongside regular Challenges
Unlock condition – accessible only after completing all live Challenges
Player experience – replaying old-but-unseen Challenges with new rewards
Our goal: Would players actually want this? Would it motivate them to engage more?
📊 Key Research Insights
The response was overwhelmingly positive, especially from our core target group.
76% of capped players said they would complete all or most Plus Challenges
49% of near-capped players said the same - indicating we could motivate more users to push toward completion
Even users with lower engagement showed interest, especially when framed as an unlockable reward system
🛠️ How Research Shaped Our Direction
The research validated our hypothesis and guided key refinements, including a stronger emphasis on exclusivity, personalization, and feed hierarchy. With positive player signals, we moved forward to finalize the system and UX.
I played around with the existing tag on the Challenge tile to help make Plus Challenges stand out and feel a bit more special.
I wanted the locked Challenge tile to feel exclusive and exciting without being intimidating. After some exploration, I went with a light blur on the thumbnail and left out the Challenge details.
The background gradient took a few tries to nail down. We ended up going with a purple that stands apart from the default navy blue (#4E5772) in our product, giving it a look that feels both consistent and premium.
Finalizing the Experience
🧭 Designing a Seamless, Scalable System
Plus Challenges had to feel like a natural extension of the Challenge feed, not a separate game mode or exclusive content drop. We designed it to:
Unlock only after all Live Challenges were completed, making it feel earned
Sit below Live Challenges: visible, but not intrusive
Use gradients, a “Plus” tag, and distinct microcopy to clearly differentiate it
This positioning made Plus Challenges feel special, not gated, reinforcing status and progression without confusing newer or casual players.
Plus Challenges show up below the regular Live Challenges, with a gradient background and a hint banner that slides up from the footer to signal progress.
Live Challenges vs. Plus Challenges feed comparison.
Finalized locked state for Challenge tile, tags, and gradient background.
We added small UX touches, like a one-time daily unlock animation, to make Plus Challenges feel celebratory, reinforcing player achievement with status and recognition.
🎁 Personalization & Monetization in the Feed
Completed Challenges were excluded. Each player’s Plus Challenge pool was personalized with unseen challenges, featuring a rotating set of three that refreshed as players submitted.
Plus Challenges introduced a new monetization strategy by surfacing segmented bundles and specialty decor (in-game content) directly in the challenge feed, tied to the content players were engaging with. This made monetization feel contextual and rewarding, while unlocking a scalable new revenue stream.
We’re surfacing in-game content relevant to Plus Challenges in the feed, allowing players to purchase items that were previously expired.
Outcome & Strategic Value
💥 A High-Leverage Feature with Big Impact
Plus Challenges launched as one of Garden Joy’s most anticipated features of 2024, and quickly proved its value.
While I can’t disclose exact revenue or retention metrics, post-launch data showed:
Significant increases in ARPDAU (Average Revenue Per Daily Active User) among capped and near-capped players
An uplift in daily active users, particularly among high-engagement cohorts
Increased content consumption without adding production overhead
The feature delivered on its core goals: monetization, engagement, and scalability. All while improving the player experience.
We saw a strong positive response from the official Garden Joy community on Facebook.
Reflection & Takeaways
🕸️ Designing Systems, Not Just Features
Plus Challenges wasn’t about new content. It was about building a scalable, personalized system that delivered ongoing value and aligned with the business.
Reusing assets and dynamic unlocking showed how systems thinking enables sustainable, high-impact solutions.
🎓 Strategic UX Requires Product Ownership
Balancing value, clarity, and business needs meant:
Rewarding power users without confusing new ones
Surfacing monetization without undermining trust
Keeping things simple while the system scaled in complexity
This project pushed me to think like a product owner, not just a designer, where success meant seamless coordination across systems, not just pixels.