Duolingo
2025
Celebrating meaningful learning milestones with Video Call Kudos that motivate learners to keep practicing.
TLDR;
Expanded Duolingo’s Kudos system by designing and shipping a new Kudos for Video Call to celebrate meaningful speaking milestones.
Refined and established triggering logic through rapid iteration and cross-team collaboration with Product, Engineering, and social engagement teams.
Shipped a scalable update that improved learner motivation and contributed to a +7.6K increase in daily active users.
Role
Product Design Intern
Team
14 People
Timeline
Jun – Jul, 2025
Introduction
Kudos is a lightweight reward system that celebrates milestones like long streaks or league promotions.
I worked cross-functionally with PMs, engineers, and designers across the Social Engagement and Video Call Experience teams to design a kudos for Video Call to boost social motivation and encourage learners to do more calls by making recognition feel effortless and rewarding.
I was in charge of designing for kudos across all surfaces — including notifications, home-drawer, Kudos feed card, and share card, as well as the triggering logic.
Kudos is a lightweight reward system that celebrates milestones like long streaks or league promotions.
I worked cross-functionally with PMs, engineers, and designers across the Social Engagement and Video Call Experience teams to design a kudos for Video Call to boost social motivation and encourage learners to do more calls by making recognition feel effortless and rewarding.
I was in charge of designing for kudos across all surfaces — including notifications, home-drawer, Kudos feed card, and share card, as well as the triggering logic.
Kudos is a lightweight reward system that celebrates milestones like long streaks or league promotions.
I worked cross-functionally with PMs, engineers, and designers across the Social Engagement and Video Call Experience teams to design a kudos for Video Call to boost social motivation and encourage learners to do more calls by making recognition feel effortless and rewarding.
I was in charge of designing for kudos across all surfaces — including notifications, home-drawer, Kudos feed card, and share card, as well as the triggering logic.
Challenges
How might we design Kudos logic that reflects real learning progress?
How might we celebrate milestones without overwhelming learners?
Kudos for Video Call
Currently, Duolingo rewards milestones like streaks and league promotions, but not progress in Video Call — one of the most effective yet intimidating ways to practice speaking.
UX research showed that speaking feels scary, even with Lily, and learners build confidence through longer, more natural conversations rather than perfection.
To address this, we explored adding Kudos to celebrate real progress and boost motivation. Working closely with the Social Engagement team, PMs, engineers, and designers, we debated how to define progress — from number of calls to words spoken — to make recognition feel personal, meaningful, and never spammy.
Currently, Duolingo rewards milestones like streaks and league promotions, but not progress in Video Call — one of the most effective yet intimidating ways to practice speaking.
UX research showed that speaking feels scary, even with Lily, and learners build confidence through longer, more natural conversations rather than perfection.
To address this, we explored adding Kudos to celebrate real progress and boost motivation. Working closely with the Social Engagement team, PMs, engineers, and designers, we debated how to define progress — from number of calls to words spoken — to make recognition feel personal, meaningful, and never spammy.
Currently, Duolingo rewards milestones like streaks and league promotions, but not progress in Video Call — one of the most effective yet intimidating ways to practice speaking.
UX research showed that speaking feels scary, even with Lily, and learners build confidence through longer, more natural conversations rather than perfection.
To address this, we explored adding Kudos to celebrate real progress and boost motivation. Working closely with the Social Engagement team, PMs, engineers, and designers, we debated how to define progress — from number of calls to words spoken — to make recognition feel personal, meaningful, and never spammy.
Role
Product Design Intern
Team
14 People
Timeline
Jun – Aug, 2025
TLDR;
Expanded Duolingo’s Kudos system by designing and shipping a new Kudos for Video Call to celebrate meaningful speaking milestones.
Refined and established triggering logic through rapid iteration and cross-team collaboration with Product, Engineering, and social engagement teams.
Shipped a scalable update that improved learner motivation and contributed to a +7.6K increase in daily active users.
Celebrating meaningful learning milestones with Video Call Kudos that motivate learners to keep practicing.
Determining meaningful progress
The biggest challenge I faced during this project was determining which metric was most meaningful to learners.
Initially, the video call team felt strongly about rewarding the number of calls completed by learners over a certain window of time. However, metrics indiciated that only the 75% percentile of Max subscribers were completing ~5 calls per weeks.
We felt like celebrating the number of calls completed would be meaningful, but this achievement would not be triggered for the bottom 75% of max subscribers, a major issue with this direction.
The biggest challenge I faced during this project was determining which metric was most meaningful to learners.
Initially, the video call team felt strongly about rewarding the number of calls completed by learners over a certain window of time. However, metrics indiciated that only the 75% percentile of Max subscribers were completing ~5 calls per weeks.
We felt like celebrating the number of calls completed would be meaningful, but this achievement would not be triggered for the bottom 75% of max subscribers, a major issue with this direction.
The biggest challenge I faced during this project was determining which metric was most meaningful to learners.
Initially, the video call team felt strongly about rewarding the number of calls completed by learners over a certain window of time. However, metrics indiciated that only the 75% percentile of Max subscribers were completing ~5 calls per weeks.
We felt like celebrating the number of calls completed would be meaningful, but this achievement would not be triggered for the bottom 75% of max subscribers, a major issue with this direction.
The second option was celebrating the number of words spoken in a video call during any given window of time. This gained more traction across the video call team as words spoken was already a metric that learners see after they complete a call.
The second option was celebrating the number of words spoken in a video call during any given window of time. This gained more traction across the video call team as words spoken was already a metric that learners see after they complete a call.
The second option was celebrating the number of words spoken in a video call during any given window of time. This gained more traction across the video call team as words spoken was already a metric that learners see after they complete a call.
Defining Kudos Logic
Designing the triggering logic required close collaboration across teams to balance fairness and motivation. We separated learners by CEFR level, since A-level learners spoke fewer words per call than B-level learners.
By adjusting the milestones for each group, we ensured Kudos triggered at moments that felt achievable and equally rewarding for everyone.
Designing the triggering logic required close collaboration across teams to balance fairness and motivation. We separated learners by CEFR level, since A-level learners spoke fewer words per call than B-level learners.
By adjusting the milestones for each group, we ensured Kudos triggered at moments that felt achievable and equally rewarding for everyone.
Designing the triggering logic required close collaboration across teams to balance fairness and motivation. We separated learners by CEFR level, since A-level learners spoke fewer words per call than B-level learners.
By adjusting the milestones for each group, we ensured Kudos triggered at moments that felt achievable and equally rewarding for everyone.
Conclusion
After aligning on words spoken as the key metric, I designed all Kudos surfaces — the in-call notification, home drawer, feed card, and share card — through multiple rounds of iteration.
The goal was to make recognition feel rewarding without interrupting the flow of practice.
Working with the Design Studio, I refined the visual style of the graphic to feel celebratory yet consistent with other kudos assets.
The final system connected motivation and progress into one cohesive experience, celebrating meaningful speaking milestones that encouraged learners to return for more calls.