Recognition & Motivation System
The expert recognition system began as a simple hypothesis: could recognitions nudge reviewers to contribute more? My focus was on the next phase: transforming in-the-moment badges into a permanent, meaningful presence within the app.
Role
Lead Designer (Surfacing in App)
Team
1 PM · 3 Engineers · 1 PMM
Year
2023–2024
This case study covers two connected phases: the initial MVP experiment, and my work surfacing recognitions more permanently across the app.
01 — Foundation: The MVP Experiment (not my work)
The MVP aimed to validate whether recognitions could actually motivate more contributions. After a user's 2nd review in a category (Tacos, for example), they'd get a nudge to write one more review to earn a badge. After the 3rd, a success screen and a badge, but this disappeared immediately, with no lasting record.
MVP Design
What the Experiment Proved
+5.5–7.8%
lift in reviews written vs. status quo (~20–29K additional reviews/month at 100%)
20%
of nudged users actually earned a badge, far exceeding push CTR benchmarks of 2–8%
+6–8%
higher Yelp Sort score for badge-motivated reviews; users wrote more carefully about topics they cared about
The experiment confirmed that recognition worked: it drove more and better reviews. But it also surfaced a glaring issue: badges only existed for a fleeting moment. Users couldn't revisit them, and readers got no benefit.
02 — My Work: The Design Problem
Technically, the recognition system existed. But without a home in the app, contributors couldn't revisit their achievements, and readers couldn't tell who was an expert. The core challenge: how do you make a credibility signal feel earned and valuable for both contributors and readers?
For contributors
Recognitions must feel like real acknowledgment: a reflection of real expertise, not a hollow badge for showing up.
For readers
Recognitions must signal trust quickly, without adding noise to an already information-dense surface.
Every design decision throughout this project was filtered through that dual-audience tension.
03 — Sequencing as a Design Strategy
The first critical move wasn't just UI: it was choosing when to build what. Design participated in finalizing the phased rollout around one single idea: every step must build credibility for the next.
| Phase | Focus | Why this order |
|---|---|---|
| M1 | Surface recognitions in the user's profile (MeTab) | Establish a permanent home before surfacing recognitions anywhere else. Without this, the whole system lacks credibility. |
| M2 | Backfill recognitions + push notification for eligible users | Reward loyal contributors who predate the system. Skipping them would undermine trust. This is part of the earning context, not a separate design problem. |
| M3 | Show recognitions next to reviews on biz pages | Only credible once users have a permanent home to tap through to. Reader-facing surfaces come last. |
This sequence wasn't just project management: it was fundamental design logic for coherence and credibility.
04 — Key Design Decisions
Each milestone introduced a distinct design problem. Here's where the most meaningful decisions were made, and why.
M1 · Contributor Surface
MeTab: Where Do Recognitions Belong?
Existing Achievements were buried and cluttered. I aimed for minimal disruption with maximum visibility.
Explored & Rejected
✕Recognitions inside the Impact section
Conflated two distinct concepts. Users understood Impact as metrics (reaction counts, view counts), not milestones or achievements. Mixing them created confusion about what the recognition was measuring.
✕Expandable / collapsed Achievements block
Added interaction cost without adding delight. The problem was findability, not space. A collapsed pattern would have made recognitions harder to discover, not easier.
Final Approach
- Added "Recognitions" directly below Yelp Elite in Achievements
- Moved Achievements higher in MeTab for better discoverability
M3 · Reader Surface
Biz Page: What Does a Recognition Look Like in Context?
This was high-stakes: readers needed instant clarity.
Explored & Rejected
✕Next to the username
Too crowded, especially for Elite users who already have an Elite badge. Recognition risked reading as a sub-category of Elite rather than its own credential.
✕Combined with existing user passport stats
Cognitively overloaded. Mixed formats (numeric stats alongside badge names) felt inconsistent, and users couldn't parse why some people had different stat combinations.
✕Recognition name only, no review count
Stripped the signal of meaning. Nothing differentiated a user who just earned a recognition from one with 30 reviews in that category, which is the whole point of the credential.
Final Approach
Replace the user passport row entirely for eligible users. Show recognition name + review count for that category. Clean, scannable, immediately meaningful. Tapping through leads to the reviewer's category-specific review list, closing the loop for readers who want to verify.
- One piece of information, clearly formatted with no competing elements
- Review count provides the depth signal that makes the recognition credible
- Tap-through to the review list lets skeptical readers verify for themselves
System Design
Expiration: Re-engagement, Not Punishment
Recognitions expire if users stop reviewing in a category for a year. The tricky part: make this feel motivating, not punitive.
How It Works
- Instead of "your recognition expired," the message is "keep your recognition active"
- Contributors always see their earned recognitions; only readers lose the view if a recognizer goes dormant
- Writing just one more review reactivates the badge, framed as an invitation, not a penalty
05 — Outcome & Impact
The recognition system evolved from a technically existing but invisible feature into a fully surfaced, end-to-end experience across iOS, Android, and Web.
- MeTab launch gave contributors a permanent, findable home for their recognitions, the foundational piece the rest of the system depended on.
- Biz page launch (Dec 2023) gave readers a credibility signal at the exact moment they're evaluating whether to trust a review, completing the reader half of the dual-audience design challenge.
- Backfill ensured loyal contributors who predate the system were recognized retroactively, protecting trust in the feature from day one.
Reflections
Building on top of a validated experiment is a different challenge than starting from zero. The proof of concept existed, but the design work of making it coherent, permanent, and trustworthy was still entirely ahead.
- Sequencing is a design decision, not just a roadmap. The order of milestones determined what was possible. Building the permanent home first meant every subsequent surface had somewhere credible to point to.
- Two-audience problems require explicit tradeoffs. Contributors needed pride; readers needed trust. Being deliberate about which need each surface was optimizing for, rather than trying to serve both equally everywhere, is what kept the design coherent.
- Framing matters as much as the interface. The expiration system is technically identical regardless of how it's described. But “keep your recognition active” versus “your recognition expired” changes how contributors experience the entire system. Sometimes the most important design work isn't the UI.