Gamifying Ecosia
Designing a gamified Impact Dashboard that connects individual user activity with real-world environmental outcomes, driving retention and engagement.
In 2024, I explored how Ecosia - the non-profit search engine that plants trees with ad revenue - could increase user engagement and retention. Ecosia's growth relies on sustained search activity: the more people search, the more trees are planted.
However, research and business data revealed a gap between user intention and long-term engagement. Users cared about sustainability but struggled to see the tangible results of their contribution.
1. Context & Objective
This concept explores how environmental impact can become more tangible inside a search product by connecting individual user activity to visible progress, milestones, and outcomes.
A gamified impact dashboard concept for Ecosia.
2. Product Direction
The focus was to keep the interaction lightweight: enough feedback to build motivation, without turning climate impact into a noisy points system.
3. Outcomes
The resulting dashboard direction uses progress, comparison, and contextual nudges to make environmental outcomes easier to understand and revisit.