Making learning fun again at Quizizz

A case study on redesigning the quiz experience to boost student engagement while maintaining educational value.

Role

Lead designer

Timeline

Oct-Dec, 2023 (12 weeks )

Team

Jr. Designer, PM, Researcher, Illustrator

Introduction

Quizizz is a platform for taking quizzes and assessments that's used by millions of teachers and students worldwide. The platform combines learning with interactive elements to make education more engaging and effective.

It is used by 70M+ monthy active users over 150+ countries.

The Problem

Students prefer platforms with engaging game mechanics

Quizizz has always been a teacher first entity, primarily because it's the teachers and school bodies who bring in the money. The problem started when Gimkit, Blooket primarily became students' favorites. Our analysis revealed that these platforms were incorporating more game-like elements that appealed directly to students.

In a nutshell, Students perception about Quizizz was that it's not fun and it showed up in pur PSAT metrics.

Research Insights

We conducted extensive research to understand what made competing platforms more appealing to students. Our findings revealed several key aspects:

Competition drove engagement: Students were drawn to platforms that created clear competitive structures.
Exploration was rewarding: Platforms that allowed discovery and surprises maintained student interest.
Collective goals balanced individual achievement: The most successful platforms balanced personal achievement with classroom collaboration.
Real-time feedback created excitement: Immediate gratification through points, rewards, or progress indicators kept energy high.

Most importantly, we found that gamification didn't need to compromise learning outcomes – in fact, the right game mechanics could enhance knowledge retention and recall.

Success Metric

PSAT (Participant Satisfaction Score) measures how satisfied students are with their learning experience on a scale of 1-5

Why PSAT?

Because it's one of those straightforward method by which we can see direct impact of whether students are liking it or not.

Other metrics include:

Increase in number of activities
Better answer accuracy

Initial

3.1

Goal

3.1

Score measured on a scale of 1-5

Our Strategy

Maintain the robust assessment tools teachers valued
Add engaging game mechanics that would appeal to students
Create a balanced experience that satisfied both stakeholders

Rather than completely overhauling the platform, we chose to enhance the existing live quiz format with carefully designed game elements that would make the learning experience more engaging.

Visual exploration of game mechanics and reward systems

Game Overview

A walkthrough of the new game mechanics and student interactions

Exhibit A: Teacher starting a game

Teachers can easily initiate and control game sessions

Exhibit B: Students view

Students get to reach levels and upon reaching a certain level, they can strike or shield.

Exhibit C: Strike in action

This shows how students can strike the opponents score

Exhibit D: Shield in action

This shows how students can shield their score

Challenges

This project presented several significant challenges:

Lack of specialized expertise: None of us were game designers. We needed to rapidly develop understanding of game mechanics, reward systems, and engagement loops.
Balancing fun with learning: Making the experience engaging couldn't come at the expense of educational value – we needed to ensure that game elements enhanced rather than distracted from learning.
Technical constraints: Any new features needed to work within the existing technical architecture and perform well across devices, including lower-end tablets often used in schools.

Despite these challenges, we tackled this project through intensive research into game mechanics and behavioral psychology. We studied successful educational games, consulted with gaming experts, and created a framework of engagement principles that could guide our work.

Guiding principles

To overcome these challenges, we established a set of guiding principles:

To make things fun for students, we need to focus on the student experience while maintaining teacher control.
We must determine whether individual goals or class goals create better engagement – or find the right balance between them.
[Hypothesis!] One of the traits in students is exploration – can we design mechanics that reward discovery?
[Hypothesis] If we align the classroom towards a common goal, does that boost the engagement and fun quotient?
In game gratification vs Post game gratification (Which one is better for student motivation)
[Tribal knowledge] Leaderboard as a gamified mechanic works, but must be implemented thoughtfully.