When starting to build your Experience, it can be a bit daunting staring at the empty Mission list. Many questions may be running through your mind, like:
“What kinds of missions should I include?”
“How many Missions will I need?”
“Should I just have all the Missions available at once?”
To make this a bit easier, I’ve broken down the top 3 things to consider before creating your Missions:
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The Goal
What do you want to achieve with your Missions? Are you wanting to teach your participants something? Do you want them to display teamwork?
This can be a good north star when starting to think of what types of missions to create. From there, you can determine the type of Missions that may be the best fit. For example:
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Text Missions are great for testing knowledge, or sharing personal stories.
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GPS Missions are amazing for facilitating exploration and discovery.
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Photo/Video Missions drive the most engagement. They are perfect for displaying creativity and building connections.
Difficulty
Do you want to provide short and easy missions that participants can complete quickly, or do you want to challenge them with longer and more creative tasks?
How quickly participants can complete Missions will also give you an idea of how many Missions you may need. If the majority of Missions are short and quick to complete, you may need more of them to keep participants engaged for longer.
Engagement and Schedule
How long do you want your participants to be participating each day?
If your experience is scheduled for a day or less then more Missions in a short period of time will ensure that they stay engaged throughout the whole Experience.
If your experience is spread out over a few days/weeks, you may want to stagger when you release your Missions to keep participants engaged. Releasing a few Missions a day will keep up the momentum and excitement as the days go on, and will still be manageable depending on each person's schedule.
If you are finding engagement is tapering off mid-Experience, consider using flash missions that are only available for a short period of time. These missions can create a sense of urgency and excitement that motivates participants to return to the app to participate.
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In all honesty, there is no perfect formula for how many Missions you need, or how many Missions to have each day.
Each experience is going to have a different sweet spot between fun vs. meeting goals, effortless vs. challenging, and how often the participants are engaging. You know your audience best, so keep them in mind when planning your Missions and don’t be afraid to try different things to see what works!