Users on Jest can now earn badges, XP, and a level that carries with them across every app on the platform. Here’s why we built it and what the first few weeks of engagement have looked like.
The achievements page, a level-up landing mid-session, and a user profile.
Why we built it
Jest is a place where people use lots of different apps, so we saw an opportunity to make progress feel just as connected. What if the things you accomplish in one app could contribute to a bigger sense of progress across Jest?
Our hypothesis was that tracking progress at the platform level could give users even more of a reason to come back tomorrow and a reason to try the app next door.
We know from the data that users who end up trying more apps stick around on Jest longer. An achievement like “play your third app” thus becomes a discovery prompt - and your app might be the answer to it.
What we launched
In this first release, we launched dozens of achievements across 17 series, ranging from relatively easy milestones like trying your first app or exploring platform features like chat and screenshot sharing, to more ambitious goals like playing across four weekends, maintaining a login streak for weeks, and referring multiple friends.
Oh, and did we mention there’s some secret achievements that don’t appear anywhere until they’re earned? We’ll let users work those out ;-)
Results so far
Three weeks in, 41% of active users have claimed at least one achievement.
High initial adoption we could have guessed at, but it was the depth that surprised us: the typical user who has claimed anything is sitting on an average of 12 badges, not one or two. Almost nobody stopped at one.
Users who claimed a badge in a given week also came back the following week noticeably more often than users who didn’t. Worth saying plainly: those were already our most engaged users, so we’re treating that as encouraging rather than causation.
What’s next
Expect more badges soon (think fun themes like seasonal sets and achievements tied to specific apps rather than the platform as a whole).
We’re also working on making leveling up worth more than bragging rights, with plans for some fresh rewards that users unlock as they climb.
If you’re building on Jest and have a view on how achievements should work inside your app, we’d love to hear it. We’re still early, and your feedback can help shape what we build next!