Original Summary

I'm a solo developer building Questly, an iOS app with 195 illustrated biographies of extraordinary people. The idea is simple: spend a few minutes reading/listening to a legendary figure's biography. understand what they faced and accomplished, and maybe come away knowing something you didn't know before. But the app wasn't always that simple. I previously built a much more gamified experience. Stories had activities throughout, hearts, quiz questions and extra XP rewards. I spent a lot of time making it work. Then I started questioning whether it was actually helping the experience I wanted to create. I wanted someone to sit with the story of Cleopatra, Marie Curie or Michael Jordan. Interrupting that story repeatedly with questions started to feel like the wrong approach. So I removed that version, including roughly 6,000 lines of code, and rebuilt the experience around reading and listening. There are still optional challenges for completing themed collections, but the biographies themselves come first. Honestly I have no reliable retention evidence yet that says removing all that gamification was a good business decision. I only know why I thought it was a better reading experience. For those of you building consumer apps: Have you ever removed a feature designed to increase engagement because it was hurting the core experience? How did you decide whether that was the right move?   submitted by   /u/Acceptable-Bet-6408 [link]   [comments]

  • 情报分类：商业与市场研究
  • 分类依据：内容涉及商业、投资或市场动态
  • 信息来源：Reddit · SideProject
  • 发布时间：2026/10/18 19:19:20