Case Study 03
MPL Rummy — The 7-Day Retention Journey
Applying Behavioral Psychology to a Stagnant Day 7 Retention Metric
Role
Principal Product Designer
Scope
New user onboarding, D7 retention
Collaborators
UX Researcher, Product Designer, Engineering, Marketing
Platform
Real Money Gaming — Rummy
01 — Problem Statement
Problem Statement
New users don't return on Day 7 by accident — in a real-money game, trust hasn't been earned yet. If we didn't engineer a reason to come back inside the first week, the business would lose them before they ever saw what Rummy could offer.
MPL Rummy's Day 7 retention for new users had stagnated at 25% — the business was losing the majority of new sign-ups before they built any habit around the product, against an average CM1 revenue baseline of ~₹75L.
The goal: design and ship a fix within a 4-week window — a system that gives new users a reason to return every day of their first week, before they've had time to develop trust or deep engagement with the platform on their own.
02 — My Role vs. Team Contribution
My Role vs. Team Contribution
03 — UX Research & Key Findings
UX Research & Key Findings
To validate why users were churning, I ran 1:1 interviews and surveys with new users who had already churned after Day 7, across different age groups — testing whether a 7-day task-based journey with visible rewards could change that trajectory.
Step 01
Participants
New users who churned after Day 7, across different age groups
Step 02
Method
1:1 user interviews and structured surveys
Key Findings
- Users lacked immediate rewards for their actions — unlike competitor apps, MPL Rummy offered no instant gratification, leaving them unmotivated to continue.
- The onboarding experience was confusing — with no guided flow, new users didn't understand the app's benefits and often churned out of frustration.
- Users preferred clear, structured tasks that led to tangible rewards — task-based engagement gave a sense of achievement and progression.
- Past task-based initiatives had shown higher engagement, reinforcing that a structured journey could work.
- Users repeatedly compared MPL Rummy unfavorably to competitors with more engaging reward systems.
- Users wanted something that encouraged a returning habit — small daily rewards accumulating into a bigger one.
The pain points behind those findings were consistent across interviews: no clear reward for continued play, an overwhelming first-run experience, and no structured onboarding to explain what to do next.
If new users are given a structured 7-day journey with clear tasks and visible, escalating rewards, they'll form a return habit before churning — closing the gap that competitor apps had already exploited with FOMO and progress-tracking mechanics.
The 7-day journey's entry point, surfaced as a task banner inside the existing Rummy lobby
The Rummy Carnival screen — Day 1–7 tasks with escalating, partially-locked rewards and a live countdown
04 — Competitor Analysis
Competitor Analysis
I benchmarked genre-relevant apps — Clash Royale, Angry Birds 2, Fruit Ninja, and Duolingo — to see how they engineered return behavior in their own onboarding and reward systems.
Angry Birds 2's quest flow, annotated during my competitor audit — tasks turn from GO to CLAIM on completion, with a free starter treasure to teach the mechanic and a delightful collect animation on every claim.
- Clash Royale — a King's Journey timeline where each completed task visibly advances progress, reinforcing a habit-forming loop
- Angry Birds 2 — quests flip from GO to CLAIM on completion, with a checkmark and a delightful collect animation
- Angry Birds 2 — a free starter treasure teaches the claim mechanic before asking anything of the user
- Fruit Ninja — rewards unlock strictly in sequence, so claiming one is what motivates the next
- Duolingo — upcoming quests stay visible but locked ("Revealed in 2 days"), keeping the journey ahead in view
The pattern held across all four: visible sequencing, an explicit claim moment with animated feedback, and upcoming rewards kept in view even while locked. That became the direct blueprint for the 7-day journey.
Duolingo — daily quest plus upcoming quests visible but locked
Clash Royale — a visible task timeline that advances as the user progresses
Fruit Ninja — sequential unlocks that motivate the next claim
05 — User Flow
User Flow
I mapped the flow from the existing MPL home screen down to claiming a reward, keeping a cancel path back to the Rummy home page at every step so a hesitant new user is never trapped mid-journey.
Step 01
Rummy Home Button
We need to grab the attention of users to tap and see what it is.
Step 02
Select a Task
Select a task and see the progress of your task.
Step 03
Seven Tasks, Seven Days
Except the first one, the rest are locked and unlock as the user progresses.
View the interactive prototype in FigmaThe full 7-day journey flow, as designed
The full flow — MPL Home → Rummy Home → Cash Back Dhamaka → pick a task → perform → claim → unlock the next, with a cancel path back to Rummy Home at every step
06 — The Hardest Decision
The Hardest Decision
Decision
Ship the 7-day task journey on time without the Claim feature — commit it to a V2 release
With a 4-week timeline, engineering flagged that the Claim feature — the interactive moment where users actively claim their reward — couldn't be built without extending the deadline. I agreed to descope it and carry it into V2 rather than delay the entire journey.
| Factor | Option A | Option B — Chosen |
|---|---|---|
| Reward delivery | Interactive Claim moment — higher delight, needs more backend work | Auto-credited rewards — ships on time, less delight |
| Scope vs. timeline | Full-featured V1 — richer experience, missed deadline | MVP journey — hits the 4-week deadline, enhance later |
| Risk | Push the deadline for completeness | Ship on time, validate the core hypothesis first |
07 — Rollout & Measurement
Rollout & Measurement
The journey launched on schedule, without the Claim feature, with an A/B test set up to measure impact against a control group.
What Went Wrong
Task-level data showed completion was lowest on Task 1 of 7, before climbing and peaking around Task 4, then tapering off through Task 7.
How It Was Corrected
We reduced the completion threshold for Task 1 in a follow-up version of the journey, which increased Task 1 completion and made more users eligible to reach Task 2.
The flow also handled a lapsed state — missing a day restarts the journey from Day 1
A win-celebration moment cross-promoting back into the journey and a leaderboard entry point
Retention improved before we'd even shipped every intended mechanic — which told us the core loop, not the polish, was doing the work.
08 — Quantitative Results
Quantitative Results
The journey was A/B tested twice on Play Store. The second round, started 16 June, split all new Rummy DAU 50/50 — 94,062 users saw the 7-day journey (test) against 76,679 who didn't (control).
- D7 Retention: Test group improved 12.7% over control on Play Store
- Carnival Page Visit Rate: 90% of eligible users opened the journey page on Play Store, versus 25% on the Pro app variant
- D0 DAU → PDAU Conversion: No change between test and control — the lift was specific to D7 retention, not overall activation
Day-wise completion rates in the weeks after launch
Task-level completion — lowest on Task 1, peaking around Task 4, tapering after
The production task ladder and rewards, with an actual completed-journey payout
09 — Next Steps
Next Steps
- Rolled the 7-day journey out by default to all new Play Store logins after the second, larger-scale A/B test (94,062 test vs. 76,679 control).
- Shipped the Claim feature in V2 — the interactive claiming moment engineering couldn't fit into the original 4-week window — which generated real delight for users.
- Planned a further A/B test measuring D15 retention specifically for users who completed the 7-day journey, across cohorts like resurrection and roller retention.
- Explored celebrating wins on a 7-day leaderboard and experimenting with variable rewards.
10 — Design Principles Demonstrated