During the pandemic, more people than ever flocked to nature as a way to safely escape lock-down. Birdwatching soared in popularity. Suddenly, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology had millions of users downloading their apps.

Growth through retention

I agreed to lead an effort to envision a next-generation birding app that could harness this movement and grow their audience through stronger engagement and retention—reducing churn and allowing the Lab to activate a much larger user base. Scaling their audience is a critical step toward reversing the decline of billions of disappearing bird species in the world.

Bring birds to the mainstream

The Lab had already transformed thousands of hard-core birders into a global force of citizen scientists. But, their new mobile audience was mainly casual nature buffs. These folks loved the “Shazam for birds” app, Merlin ID. But, users needed more reasons to stick around long-term and use the app regularly. How could the Merlin app become the new face of the Lab to a larger, younger, more diverse audience?

What's the biggest obstacle?

When we spoke to birders and bird-lovers, we often heard the same thing—I don't know what to do. With further questioning, we uncovered this was mostly a problem of "where". Birders wanted to get outside and enjoy birdwatching, but deciding where to go was a major obstacle. If we could give people clear focus, we could suggest activities and places to go.

Games and birding

Birders have been playing games for over a century to give them more focus in the field. This is mainly composed of listing, which is a classic collection mechanic. The most basic game is a Life List—keep track of all the bird species you've ever seen in the world. And many birders subdivide this into a Year List, County List, State List, etc. There are also competitive games, like Big Days, where teams or individuals compete to find the most species within 24 hours. And the list goes on and on.

Quests, a concept from video games

From my experience designing video games, I knew we could drive specific user behaviors by giving them objectives, or quests. We could challenge our audience with mini-games that use game mechanics, like collection, streaks, medals, leveling, competition, and collaboration. With a quests platform, we could publish personalized quests based on people's interests, skill level, and social connections. And we could activate them to engage with their environment, with their community, and even increase their impact on data science for conservation.

A platform, and a front-end

We tested the concept by prototyping with Glide. This tool allows you to build a mobile front-end with a Google Sheets database. We tested quest ideas with a small group of friends and family to see what resonated and find the right level of depth vs complexity.

Defining the entities and their relationships was a breakthrough moment for communicating and understanding the quests system. Prior to this, there was constant confusion—particularly between species and sightings.

Content, community, and activities

The core of the vision is to internally unify the teams at the Lab, so they can work together to engage and activate their expanding audience through social connections and participation in fun engaging activities that drive curiosity and build equity in the Lab over time. The new Merlin will be the nexus of all the these things things—between the Lab and their customers, between customers and each other, and between customers and the birds.

Where do we go from here?

We continue to encourage capable birders to contribute data, and are able to deploy their skills in areas that represent gaps in the data. We make it easy for customers who love birds and the Lab to become donating members. And we find new ways to activate users who have a growing interest in conservation.