Goldfish: Gamifying Retention for Frontline Workers

I designed a native mobile training platform for frontline teams, bringing short learning tasks, leaderboards, rewards and feedback into one app.

Make training easier to access and more engaging for frontline teams, with a consistent approach to onboarding, development and recognition.

A native mobile training platform combining short quiz modules, task-based learning, leaderboards, challenges and recognition. The experience brought training and progress into one place for frontline teams.

I explored game-led concepts for training, goal tracking and team challenges. SpaceQuest used shared milestones and a space-themed progress system. Buildy turned completed tasks into panels on a shared map. I then moved toward a more practical task-based model that fit the team's technical constraints.

SpaceQuest: Employees worked together to reach distance milestones, unlocking cash bonuses and ship upgrades to accelerate progress.

Buildy: Completing tasks unlocked hexagonal panels for a shared or personal map, creating a visual monument of their connection to Bowlero.

While integration was feasible, maintaining engagement required specialized developers. Given the scope, we opted for a more practical gamification approach.

With the direction set, I gathered early feedback and created several visual routes for the experience. I presented the options to leadership and used the feedback to guide the next design phase.

1. User Research and Interviews Spoke with employees across leadership, venue management and frontline roles to understand the training experience.

2. Concept Ideation and Validation Explored training, narrative-led gamification and competition concepts, then combined elements into a single direction.

3. Design and Prototyping Designed quizzes, challenges and progress views for a clear, approachable mobile experience.

4. Pilot and Iterations Used pilot feedback to adjust challenge difficulty and make performance feedback more timely.

The project brought training, progress and recognition into a task-based experience for frontline teams. Pilot feedback informed refinements to challenge difficulty and feedback timing. Collaboration: Heyo designed the logo and animation.