In addition to my scope of daily job, out of passion, I wrote two PR/FAQs after taking Amazon’s writing classes. One of the PR/FAQs is Cultivating Reading Habits, which is a program that uses a series of engaging features to encourage customers to read more often. I applied the scientifically-supported theories I learned from the book, Atomic Habit, and incorporated behavioral change tools into my proposal. I shared the document with data analysts’ office hours to get their insights. During this time, a PM from another team in the Books Org coincidentally found out about the Cultivating Reading Habit PR/FAQ and reached out to me to collaborate on a project that shared similar visions and goals.
The little side project of mine turned into Kindle’s first experiment on engagement/reward system. Within a few weeks, I created a cohesive set of reading-themed badges for customers to collect through reading on Kindle. On January 1, 2021, we launched the Kindle Challenge, a two-way door experiment ran in the US until January 31, and deepened our understanding of how badges/achievements can drive high value actions and reading engagement.
There were many active threads on blogs, Reddit, and Facebook discussing the challenge. 85% of customers that submitted feedback through the challenge said they would like to continue earning badges based on their engagement with Kindle.
“I Love this challenge and those like it because it encourages me to get back to my passion of reading”
“I love the idea of offering a metaphorical carrot to get users to read more. Absolutely love it. I want more challenges like this one!”
“I love this challenge! I usually read often but I feel this will motivate me to read even more! I look forward to more challenges throughout the year!”
The successful experiment had eventually led to the long-term Kindle Challenge and Kindle Rewards that you see on Kindle today. Take a look of the experimental “Trophy Room” that I designed for:
