How I designed the most popular interactive game for Adobe's Experience Cloud events
Context
Adobe wanted an engaging way for Experience Cloud representatives to deepen their product knowledge so they could more effectively point customers resources.
What began as an internal experience for Adobe quickly became a public game for attendees of Adobe Summit and Adobe Experience Makers Live.
Desired Outcomes
Get representatives (and later attendees) rewarded for deepening their knowledge about Adobe Experience Cloud
Concept
The strategy was to create a game, where, as a reward for learning about the product, the user was given the chance at winning a prize. The team landed on a “Plinko” style game.
My task was to design the experience from the landing page, to user education, to showing evidence that the user learned, to earning chances to win prizes, and ultimately being rewarded.
Here's an abbreviated flow to show the concept:
Stage 1: Establish the Player’s Objective
The player is given 3 chances to earn as many prizes as they can.
The user is introduced to the game board first and is invited to "Earn a Ball." Viewing the game board initially provides a “home” for the user to come back to, giving a primer for feedback when a ball is earned or a slot is lost, which communicates they will be making their attempts here.
Stage 2: Challenge the Player
The player is educated and then challenged on their knowledge of Adobe Experience Cloud at the next stage. Upon tapping the ball slot to earn a ball, a view allows them to choose a challenge, watch a video, answer a quiz question, and win a ball or lose the slot.
Upon earning a ball or losing a slot, the result of the challenge animates into the slot, a moment of feedback that forms a relationship between the education and reward.
Stage 3: Anticipation, Variable Reinforcement, and Reward
Anticipation of a reward tends to have a more powerful effect than the reward itself, so a moment of anticipation is useful here to reinforce the behavior of trying again. And as with any game of luck, once there is a reward, we tend to want to repeat that behavior again, with the illusion that we have control over the final result. This helps the game loop… loop!
Execution
Alongside the UX and UI, I did the art, 3D animation, and chipped in some code with the dev team (React).
Results
The main objectives were not just met but exceeded. This initiative became one of the most highly engaged experiences both internally and during events like Adobe Summit and Adobe Experience Makers Live. Both attendees and representatives were well rewarded for their participation, with hundreds of prizes distributed to nearly every participant.
Although I cannot disclose specific data, Adobe deemed the project an extraordinary success for Adobe Experience Cloud. Its remarkable impact led to its adoption in subsequent events and various other contexts.
