How I Redesigned Quddy Post-Launch to Solve Engagement Drop and Drive Repeat Scanning Using Gamification
Quddy is a Spain-based concept-stage app that turns receipts into everyday value for users and actionable insights for businesses. I designed Quddy from scratch, taking it from 0 to 1 into a polished, intuitive launch-ready product. But three months after release, engagement plateaued. The app worked well, but it wasn’t yet a habit. This case study tells the story of how I uncovered the root problem and redesigned the experience to drive sustained, repeat engagement, transforming receipt scanning from a one-off utility into a daily behavior.
Impact:
Reward Redemption
62% in first quarter
Weekly Scans
Increased by 42%
Partner Data Value
2.3× richer insights
Reward Variety
35% higher redemption
My Role
As Quddy’s lead product designer, I drove the product end-to-end from discovery to validation, shaping the vision, defining success criteria, and aligning user needs with business goals. I led research, concept development, gamification design, and prototype testing, collaborating closely with PMs, data analysts, and engineers to ensure feasibility and measurable impact.
Team
Our cross-functional team, based in Spain, brought together product, engineering, and data expertise. While working remotely, I partnered closely with the PM to align priorities, collaborated with backend and mobile engineers to refine technical feasibility, and worked with data analysts to uncover behavioral patterns and validate our solution.
Industry
B2C | Retail Tech · Consumer Tools . Sustainability Tech
Company
Defraged | Madrid, Spain | March 2019
Tools
Figma, Miro, Mixpanel, Typeform, Jira, Slack
I Built Quddy from Scratch. And That Was Only the Beginning.
Quddy started as one of those ideas that instantly clicks: turn your messy, easily lost receipts into something useful. Instead of crumpled paper or emails buried in your inbox, Quddy lets you scan and store them in seconds, unlocking a clear history of your purchases and turning that data into valuable insights for you, and smarter decisions for businesses.
I led the design from concept to launch, zero to one. That meant shaping the UX strategy, designing the core features, and crafting an interface that felt clean, quick, and a little bit delightful.
🤔
But this case study isn’t about the 0→1 build of Quddy, it’s about what happened after launch, when the deeper challenge became keeping people engaged long‑term.
What Quddy Offered at Launch
The Problem (No active user)
A Solid Launch… But Something Was Missing
Three months after launch, the data told a story we couldn’t ignore: sign-ups were healthy, but active usage had stalled. The app wasn’t broken, it was functional, intuitive, and visually polished, but it wasn’t becoming a habit for people.
What I Heard Directly from Users
In our support inbox and feedback forms, users were candid about why Quddy wasn’t sticking for them:
🧠 “I forget to open the app unless I’m returning something.”
🛒 “I love the idea, but it feels like extra work after shopping.”
💤 “I scan a few receipts, then I just… stop.”
💸 “I don’t get much out of it unless I spend a lot.”
🤷 “Feels like I’m doing the app a favor, not the other way around.”
📱 “It’s one more app to manage on my phone.”
🏦 “I already have bank apps showing my transactions, why both?”
⏳ “No real reason to keep using it once I try it out.”
I Decided to Dig Deeper into the Problem
I needed to go beyond surface complaints and understand the real friction points. Here’s how I approached it:
First Approach
🎙️12 In-Depth User Interviews
I spoke with three distinct groups:
In each 45–60 minute session, I explored their shopping habits, receipt-keeping routines, and emotional triggers for opening (or ignoring) the app.
❇️ Heavy users
who scanned consistently
⚠️ Light users
who tried it but never formed a habit
⛔️ Churned users
who uninstalled after a few tries
What I learned:
Most saw receipt storage as a “nice-to-have,” not a must-do task.
People scanned only when they needed proof of purchase for a return, warranty, or expense claim.
There was no immediate, tangible benefit for scanning, it felt like “extra work” without payoff.
☹️ These insights confirmed a motivation gap: the app wasn’t giving users enough reason to keep coming back.
Second Approach
📊 Behavioral Funnel Analysis
To complement the interviews, I dived into three months of user analytics in Mixpanel, mapping every step from app open → receipt scan → viewing insights.
The numbers backed up what we were hearing from users:
65% scanned just 1–3 receipts in their first week, then never returned.
Of those who did come back, the second session often happened weeks later, usually triggered by a return or warranty claim, not routine use.
🤔
How was this drop-off affecting the business?
From a business perspective
I worked closely with our PM and data team in two stakeholder workshops to unpack what this meant for Quddy’s model.
Together, we identified three major risks:
Data volume was too low to build accurate purchase behavior profiles. Our retail and mall partners relied on aggregated trends to guide inventory, spot regional shifts in demand, and plan seasonal promotions.
User churn drove up acquisition costs without generating enough lifetime value to offset them.
Low engagement weakened our monetization path, fewer receipts scanned meant fewer opportunities to sell anonymized trend reports or run in-app brand campaigns.
One insight hit particularly hard during these workshops:
a major retail partner had asked whether a new premium coffee line was catching on in the city’s northern districts. With healthy scan rates, Quddy could have delivered week-by-week adoption curves. But our incomplete dataset made us unreliable as a market intelligence source, a direct threat to partner trust and retention.
🆘🤯
This meant the stakes were higher than just “people aren’t opening the app.” It was a threat to the business model itself, and fixing it would require solving the motivation gap at its root.
So… How Do You Make Someone Want to Scan a Receipt? 🤔
Once I had the cold, hard truth in front of me, the real challenge began: turning “meh, I’ll skip it” into “I can’t wait to use this.”
This wasn’t about fixing a button or tweaking a flow.
It was about shifting behavior, giving people a reason to take those extra seconds to snap a receipt, and making that moment worth their time.
Stepping Back Before Stepping Forward
I gathered our PM, a data analyst, and our lead engineer for a working session. We mapped the problem space on a whiteboard:
What users want vs. what they get today
What the business needs vs. what data we actually collect
Quick wins vs. strategic bets
It quickly became clear: simply “improving the UX” wouldn’t solve a motivation problem. We had to create value at the moment of scan , instant gratification for users, meaningful data for the business.
We ran a week of rapid ideation sprints to explore the possibilities, pulling in:
Competitive analysis from apps in loyalty, finance, and retail
Customer journey mapping to pinpoint “emotional highs” we could tap into
A feasibility check with engineering to avoid building castles in the air
🤔
Setting the Bar for the Right Solution
By the end of the sprint, we had our criteria for success:
Immediate user value, something that rewards effort instantly
Sustainable engagement, a hook that keeps people coming back, not just a one-off gimmick
Business impact, richer, more consistent purchase data for trend analysis and retail partnerships
Technical feasibility, could be delivered within our next release cycle without derailing other priorities
And, we had three tangible concepts on the table:
We also stress-tested these ideas against our core problem areas and mapped potential ROI for both user engagement and merchant value.
📥 Automated Receipt Sync
👉 Direct integration with major retailers and banks so receipts appear in Quddy without user action.
👉 Eliminates the biggest friction point — manual uploads — while feeding richer purchase data to our analytics.
📊 Personal Spending Insights
👉 Visual dashboards highlighting monthly trends, frequent purchases, and potential savings.
👉 Positions Quddy as more than a storage tool, it becomes a financial companion.
Winner
🥳 Gamified Receipt Scanning
👉 Lightweight, everyday triggers that reward users for consistent activity.
👉 Could include streaks, milestones, or points, but at this stage, we kept it high-level to avoid locking into a specific mechanic too early.
🥳
Why Gamification Concept Won ?
So... I decided to continue with Gamified Receipt Scanning
When I measured each concept against our criteria for success, gamified receipt scanning came out on top:
✅ Immediate user value: Rewards turn each scan into a win. Users get something tangible in return instantly, without waiting for long-term insights or integrations that depend on retailer adoption.
✅ Sustainable engagement: Game mechanics (points, streaks, milestones) naturally drive repeat behavior and habit formation, a critical gap we’d identified in our usage analysis.
✅ Business impact: Every scan enriches Quddy’s dataset with SKU-level purchase trends. This anonymized data helps shopping centers spot regional favorites, seasonal peaks, and slow-moving inventory, enabling smarter promotions and stocking decisions.
✅ Technical feasibility: Unlike automated syncs, which required complex retailer and banking partnerships, gamification could be built with our existing infrastructure and iterated quickly.
✅ Choosing gamification meant we could address the core engagement problem immediately, while also strengthening the business model through richer data, without waiting on slow, dependency-heavy integrations.
Now Let’s Show You Our Gamification Features, A Solution That Worked
Once we saw gamified scanning check every box for Immediate User Value, Sustainable Engagement, Business Impact, and Technical Feasibility, it was time to design a system that delivered on all four.
🎯 Points per Scan
Instant feedback loop: users see their points grow with each scan, reinforcing a sense of achievement and making progress visible.
💰 Reward Marketplace
Points can be redeemed for high-perceived-value rewards like cash transfers, free up a receipt, or cinema tickets, tying the app to real-life benefits.
🏆 Weekly Challenges & Streaks
Short-term goals and streak bonuses keep the habit alive, while optional challenges prevent the system from feeling like a chore.
📊 Anonymized Purchase Trend Data
Every scan enriches Quddy’s aggregated product trend dataset. This data lets shopping centers see what’s trending locally, spot seasonal shifts, and adjust stock or promotions with precision.
🤓
Now, Let's Validating the Gamification Solution!
I Decided to See If Our Solution Really Worked, Here’s How I Validated It
Once the gamified receipt scanning feature was in place, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a nice idea on paper, it had to deliver value for both users and the business. I teamed up with our PM and data teams to set up a validation plan that combined behavioral analytics, direct user feedback, and business KPI tracking.
Here’s what I used:
Mixpanel Event Tracking
to track user engagement metrics: DAU/WAU, receipt scan frequency, retention curves, and reward redemption rates.
Amplitude Behavioral Funnels
to see drop-off points in the scanning flow and reward claiming process.
Typeform In-App Surveys
to capture real-time qualitative user feedback on rewards and motivation.
