CASE STUDY
Increasing Student Retention with a Gamified App
Tablet
Mobile
Education
Gamification
"Amazing team. I have never worked with a group of people that were so good and asking questions to ensure that they understood what I wanted. "
Ron Curran, Owner of Curran's Karate
The owner of Curran's Karate, a renowned karate instructor with over two decades of experience, approached us with the idea of building a gamified platform that helps engage karate students and build good habits.
CHALLENGE
The Art of Discipline
Martial arts is an art of discipline. Young students need courage and motivation to attend class each week, and practicing for years to advance through the belts.
A central problem that many martial art schools face is that once students give up and leave, they never come back.
That's where the pack comes in.
With Raccoopack's background of building apps that focus on engagement and fun, Curran's Karate found us to be a great fit to help achieve his vision. With our technical and design expertise, we helped bring the expansive platform to life from day one.
SOLUTION
It Takes a Village to Raise a Child
From our initial concept design meetings with the client, we identified that three groups are central to consistently engaging students in martial arts: Instructors, parents, and fellow students.
MyDojo World consists of three apps that work together to create an ecosystem that keeps the students motivated both during their martial arts classes and at home.
Designing The Three Apps of MyDojo World
The Instructor App
From interviewing instructors, we found that they prefer simple apps that help get mundane admin tasks done quick and allowing them to focus on training students.
The instructor app stays true to this insight: We built the instructor app to allow the instructors to manage the dojos from their fingertips. No feature bloating or complicated screens - they can accomplish taking attendance in seconds.
The Parent App
To increase student engagement, we surveyed parents to understand the primary motivators.
As it turns out, belts are not the only motivator - the data shows that parent recognition is one of the top sources of motivation for students.
We synthesized this insight with goal setting theory in gamification: When it comes to persevering towards long term goals, breaking it down into bite-sized chunks makes it more manageable.
Rewarding good behaviours and habits in-game, students are encouraged to complete challenges from their parents to grow their in-game dojos, as well as their own personal discipline.
The MyDojo Game
The MyDojo Game is the star of the ecosystem: It is a game that reinforces the gamification concepts from the parent and instructor app.
We designed a system where the player can grow their dojo as they also grow in their personal development.
In terms of the visuals, we decided to capture a cartoon aesthetic that is pivotal in attracting the attention of a younger audience, while paying special attention to colours that pay homage to a modern martial arts dojo.
Key features of the game are also highlighted with bright colours to make sure that while students may complete their tasks in real life, they are also rewarded for their actions.
The MyDojo game serves as the touchpoint that students can engage with and earn their way to being mentally stronger and more disciplined.
As students attend class and complete challenges assigned by their parents, they are rewarded with in-game currencies that enable them to upgrade and decorate their own dojo.
PROCESS
From Ideas to Product
To spark life into the initial concept of the MyDojo ecosystem, we first began with creative briefs and workshops to brainstorm the vision - ultimately refining the concept into characters, backgrounds, and gameplay.
To further enhance collaboration, we made sure to meet frequently with the client, reviewing and testing designs together that ultimately led to the release of a polished product.
As with any project that we do, we always bring the app into the hands of users to get their feedback. Utilizing in-person and remote user test sessions, we were able to make the user experience better - taking the project to further heights. Check out some of the project artifacts below!
RESULTS
Engaged students, parents, and instructors
Looking back, what came out was a beautiful, gamified platform for martial arts schools, catering to everyone from children, parents, and instructors. Looking ahead, our team is excited to see an improvement in student retention along with wonderful habits and behaviours being taught to young minds - creating better leaders of tomorrow.
✅ Apps successfully completed and launched on iOS and Android app stores
📈 Proven 24%+ increase in retention in martial art schools
🥋 Good habits and behaviours taught to young martial arts students
⭐ 5/5 rating from client on scheduling, cost, and quality
