How I gamified learning at Cloud Academy boosting user motivation and MoM cashflow.
I designed a 3-month challenge that increased engagement, reduced churn, and boosted cashflow. 16% of participants kept studying after the challenge ended, and 10% renewed their membership within 6 months—strong signals of lasting impact beyond the typical subscription period.
Audio overview
MY ROLE ON THE PROJECT
As the only product designer in an agile team I handled the end-to-end design process, including: User Research & Analysis, Proto Personas & User Stories, User Flows & UX/UI Design (low → high fidelity), Prototyping & Usability Testing, Design Handoff & collaboration with engineers
Where the idea came from
The opportunity
This was more than a trend. We saw a business potential to:
Acquire new users working toward clear, time-bound goals
Reduce early churn by encouraging longer-term commitments
Boost monthly net cashflow by requiring users to prepay for 3 months (the riskiest period for cancellations)
How might we help committed learners stay on track—while improving retention and revenue?
We launched Cloud Marathon, a 3-month challenge where users commit to studying 1 hour per day and posting their progress publicly. If they complete all 90 days, they get a full refund.
To make it more inclusive, I also designed a “Half Marathon” version: 45 days of study instead of 90. Same structure, less intense commitment.
The initial hook was obvious: learn for free.
But the deeper value came from helping users build study habits, explore beyond a single platform, and stay accountable through public sharing.
Designing the experience from scratch
With no prior solution to build on, I designed the entire experience from scratch—starting with the user journey. I mapped out all user flows, from landing page sign-up to completion, ensuring the challenge structure was easy to understand and stick with. (This is where I visually broke down the experience with user flow diagrams.)
Designing with constraints
We had no research budget and limited dev time. I collaborated with learning coaches to build proto-personas based on their real-world interactions, and worked closely with our PM to define core user stories for the MVP.
From there, I designed a landing page, a dashboard to track progress and completion state and a results page summarizing outcomes and rewards.
Because dev resources were shared, we shipped the project in phases over four months. I prioritized clean handoff, edge case coverage, and constant alignment with engineers.
Validating early ideas
To get early buy-in, I rapidly sketched and prototyped mid-fidelity wireframes for internal testing. This allowed us to de-risk key UX decisions without slowing momentum.
"When the reward is the activity itself— deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one’s best—there are no shortcuts."
Daniel H Pink
Results
We launched two rounds of Cloud Marathon and we saw:
+18% MoM net cashflow increase (minimal paid ads)
16% of users continued studying post-challenge
10% renewed a paid membership within 6 months
Repeat participation and strong word-of-mouth
What I learned
One key mistake: we relied too heavily on internal feedback for usability testing. After launch, 8% of users contacted support confused about disqualification. I addressed this by redesigning the daily challenge cards for clarity in the second edition.
This project reinforced a few key principles:
Align product ideas with real user behaviors
Small design bets can drive big business outcomes
Clarity and inclusivity in challenge-based design are non-negotiable
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