How to plan a lottery event to improve user experience?

Treat the activity as a product. Every change and iteration will bring a different experience to users. My goal is to continuously improve the user experience of the product, thereby promoting continuous growth of users.

As a fledgling product manager, I don’t have much experience in user growth. When faced with the road of small steps and rapid trial and error, we need to work on both products and operations. Therefore, I hope to form my own complete methodology through continuous summarization.

In June, I planned a one-month lucky draw event with the goal of increasing the number of user registrations. Review the sweepstakes event as if it were a product designed to be related to the sweepstakes: How to plan the event to improve the user experience.

1. There are many functional optimizations, and the most important ones are put first

This is the first time we are planning a lottery event, and some functions may need to be optimized and launched in a timely manner in the future. So what kind of functions need to be prioritized and need corresponding planning and organization. The functions that have the greatest impact on user experience and are most attractive to users should be placed first.

Each activity will have different features for "most impactful user experience". For the lucky draw event I planned, the function that most affects the user experience is the support for completing the lucky draw closed loop in the WeChat environment.

Generally speaking, we should first classify the functional items that need to be optimized by type. "Functional" refers to those functions that can immediately improve the user experience and promote the achievement of activity goals, and should be given the highest priority. "Operation and guidance" refers to optimization items that can make the activity attractive to users. If done well, it can make users feel good about the activity and may turn it into motivation for continued participation. "Page design" refers to the optimization items for visual display that can be done after the activity is already attractive enough to users and the page has been exposed.

How to measure and classify can be determined based on activity data, colleague experience, competitive product learning, etc. Data shows that after the Priority A feature was launched on June 11, the average daily number of participants in the lottery remained at around 2,000 people, an increase of about 75% compared to the daily average before the optimization.

In this section, a little experience is summarized: depending on the environment in which users are most active, you should immediately create a closed loop of activities that support this environment. When the lucky draw was first launched, it only supported participation in the APP environment. For parents who would only open the APP when attending classes or submitting homework, the only way they knew about this event was when the class teacher posted the promotional poster on WeChat or sent private messages.

If parents are required to jump from WeChat to the APP to participate in the lottery at this time, it would feel like a waste of time. After clarifying this point, it is necessary to eliminate obstacles that may affect the launch of this function as soon as possible, or use currently available substitutes to support the closed loop of the WeChat environment as quickly as possible "by any means necessary".

2. Activity Design: How to Make Users “Happy”

In fact, no matter what product it is, good user experience = users feel satisfied and happy. As for sweepstakes, users feel "happy" in many ways: getting something for free, getting what they want, winning the grand prize, immediately understanding what the event is about, and not always getting the smallest prize.

Therefore, based on these user psychology points, we reviewed the following four reusable functional points.

1. Free first draw for all members

To put it simply, it allows users to get a chance to win a lottery without having to complete our tasks. The purpose is to lower the threshold for users to understand and try it out as quickly as possible.

We are not WeChat or Taobao, and most of the time we are unable to estimate the cost of "educating" users. Therefore, in order to allow users to experience what the activity is about in the shortest possible time, the most direct way is to let them participate in it effortlessly.

Therefore, not every parent can understand a new activity at the first sight after entering the activity page. In order to lower the user's psychological threshold of "What is this activity and how do I get the lottery card", each parent is given a free trial draw. Even if they may know that "the one drawn will definitely be the smallest one", parents can still have a surprising start.

It should be noted that anything the product does needs to be clearly perceived by the user. For example, for a free first draw, the display method can be to silently give the user’s lottery card +1; or a large prompt “Congratulations on winning…” can be displayed as soon as the user enters. We need to let users know everything we do. Once they perceive it, they will feel happy and then proceed to the next step...slowly moving towards the goal.

2. Winning probability tiered setting

What prizes will be won in the first draw and in the subsequent draws? What users are most concerned about when participating in a lottery is probably the winning prize. In conjunction with the cost budget, the distribution of the probability of winning needs to be considered. The prizes can be allocated by setting relative probabilities and weights.

The user experience for this part depends on whether the user wins the smallest prize for the first time and whether he or she will win the same smallest prize in the subsequent times. If so, it may be a problem with the setting of the winning probability; it may also be a problem that the prizes are not set up in layers.

The tiered setting of prizes may be more adaptable to the event budget cost and improve the user experience than adjusting the winning probability. When preparing for an event, you can set the corresponding prize levels based on the prize positions.

For example, the first level = minimum reward, there are 3 types; the second level = medium reward, there are 3 types... Therefore, when the probability of winning at each level is equal, even if the user can draw the smallest reward, the smallest reward may be different each time, and the psychological barrier will become much smaller.

3. Create an activity atmosphere and guide people to complete tasks

Here we discuss atmosphere creation and task guidance based on two scenarios:

1) When parents come to the activity page, they see that their lottery cards have been used up, but the lottery button seems to be still clickable.

Generally speaking, when the user's lottery card count = 0, the lottery button should be grayed out and unclickable. At this time, when the user comes to this page, will he have a feeling of "Ah, this activity has nothing to do with me?", because when he sees that he has no lottery card, he feels that he can't do anything and doesn't want to do anything. At this point, the product needs to guide users to complete tasks and always maintain a sense of activity on the page.

When the lottery button is always on, users will get used to clicking it subconsciously. When a click occurs, task guidance is provided to inform the user of the task to be completed in order to obtain a certain number of lottery cards. This method of user guidance is smoother than simply graying out the button and making it inoperable.

2) When parents come to the activity page and see that someone has won a big prize, they also want to win the prize.

When other people win prizes, especially big prizes, how do users perceive it and develop a strong desire to win? This involves the five-layer theory of product experience: from the strategic layer to the performance layer. It still comes back to what I said above - we hope that users can perceive everything we do. Therefore, from a strategic perspective, when other people win the prize, we want users to know that they have won the prize. This will then stimulate the user to think, “Wow! I can really win a big prize in this activity!” and he will continue to complete tasks in the hope of winning the prize.

Layer by layer, what we need to consider is the presentation layer. What kind of design should be used to make users aware of it? If we regard the lucky draw as a live broadcast on Bilibili, "barrage of comments floating by" may be a suitable design direction. If you think of a lucky draw as a lucky thing, "red envelope rain falling from the sky" may also be a suitable design direction.

Users can be easily infected by others in group activities. When he sees the list of grand prize winners, he may be infected by the atmosphere of "I want to win the grand prize too" and take the next action. At this time, the purpose of the activity atmosphere created by the product has been achieved.

4. Clearly display the activity steps on the first screen

The content displayed on the first screen needs to clearly inform users: what the event is, how to use the lottery cards, and how to get the lottery cards. The first version of the home screen design was based on competitor designs, mainly displaying the theme + turntable prizes. But later I found that themes are often used to attract users to the activity page, so the highlight should be on the design of promotional materials (such as banners, floats, pop-up ads, quick entries, etc.).

Once users are successfully attracted, what they see on the first screen of the activity page should not be a long-winded theme design.

Therefore, in the second version of the home screen design, we reorganized the three parts that needed to be clearly informed to users, and in line with the 618 theme, we directly told users "what they can get".

First version of the home screen (left), second version of the home screen (right)

3. Prize preparation: timely feedback and creating a sense of surprise

1. Timely feedback of winning results

It can be divided into the moment of winning and after winning. The moment a user wins a prize, they need to be prompted in a timely manner to avoid being confused or having misunderstandings - the wheel pointer stops at the grand prize, but the prize prompted is inconsistent. One thing to note is: the development and design of the turntable speed and pointer stop.

In order to make users feel that this activity is not fake, developers need to pay attention to the fact that the turntable needs to rotate at a constant speed, and when the pointer stops, it does not "stop abruptly", but stops slowly and at a constant speed. If the developer does not understand the desired effect of the product, you can record some good turntable effects for the developer to see~

After a user wins a prize, there needs to be an entrance that allows the user to check the winning prize in time; and a notification method can be linked to inform the user that he has won the prize. After the event is over, users will be very concerned about what grand prizes they have won, so it is necessary to consider designing an entrance that allows users to view the prizes they have won, or export reports to the class teacher providing the service.

2. The pace of prize delivery

Maybe during planning I will inform users when the prizes will be mailed out on the page, but I will prepare in batches in advance so that users can have the experience of "The prizes arrive so soon, that's great!" On the one hand, it can achieve a "good beginning and a good end", laying a good foundation for guiding users to participate in subsequent activities. On the other hand, it can also reduce the pressure of purchasing and mailing a large number of prizes at one time.

Therefore, the prizes can be prepared in batches, and after the event, the class teacher can be contacted immediately to inform them that the prizes have been sent out so that parents can rest assured.

IV. Conclusion

To sum up, in order to improve the user experience of the lottery, I need to pay attention to several points:

1. When classifying the functional optimization items, those that most affect the user experience are ranked first.
2. Let users feel "refreshed" in the fastest time.
3. Create a stimulating activity atmosphere to guide the completion of tasks.
4. Reduce user learning costs – Display activity steps as clearly as possible on the first screen.
5. Winnings should be reported back promptly and sent out subsequently to create a sense of surprise.

This article mainly reviews the lottery activity from the perspective of user experience, but the lottery involves cost budgeting, procurement and distribution, prize setting risks and laws and regulations. Therefore, in the early planning, not only user experience but also the above aspects need to be considered. While improving the user experience, the activity goals cannot be ignored.

We hope that through this review of the user experience, we can provide directional support for subsequent product work.

Author: Maureen

Source: Maureen