Hiberworld.
A web-based gaming platform with 120M SEK in fresh funding — but an app nobody opened. I led the engagement design across rapid sprints to fix onboarding, retention, and sign-up conversion.
Hiberworld is an online platform where users design and play their own games in the browser. In 2021 they raised 120M SEK to prioritize the mobile app — but despite the success of the web product, the app was significantly underused. They needed help on three fronts: day 1 / 8 / 28 retention (the primary KPI), gamification and engagement for existing users, and conversion to sign up.
My role
UX & engagement designer, embedded with the Hiber team across design sprints — from research through design-to-implementation.
Primary KPI
Day 1, 8, and 28 retention. Secondary goals: in-app gamification, engagement, and sign-up conversion.
Approach
Design sprints for a fast, dynamic roadmap, anchored in research to pinpoint focus areas per KPI.
A funded app nobody opened
The web platform worked — but the app failed to hold people. New users dropped off before they understood what Hiberworld even was, there was no clear way to learn how to play, and nothing pulled people back day after day. With fresh funding riding on the app, the job was to turn first opens into habits.
Research-led design sprints
A tight deadline meant a dynamic roadmap. We ran a pre-study to grasp the KPIs, benchmarked competitors, then looped through design sprints — define, prototype, balance, repeat.
Pre-study
Grasp the KPIs and constraints together with the client.
Research
Benchmark competitors and dig into where users drop off.
Define
Pinpoint the focus areas to attack per KPI.
Ideate
Explore fixes for onboarding, retention, and conversion.
Prototype
Build and test the flows in Figma.
Balancing & test plan
Tune the gamification and plan how to validate it.
What research told us to fix
Four findings shaped the redesign. Each one mapped to a concrete change in the app.
Choosing what to play matters — but onboarding faked it
The three onboarding games were identical apart from theme — an illusion of choice. Redesigned onboarding so the early game choice feels real.
No clear way to actually learn how to play
Built "onboarding games" — three short games that gradually introduce mechanics, so a new user learns by playing.
Avatars and bragging rights drive retention
Players earn XP for each completed game; the final mission prompts account creation to claim the XP plus a unique onboarding avatar.
Users need clear CTAs and fresh reasons to return
Weekly challenges with rotating missions, points, and avatar rewards — a repeatable hook back into the app.
The screens that shipped
First opens became habits
Increased sign-up conversion in the app
Day 1 / 8 / 28 retention from weekly challenges
Completion rate on the new onboarding journey
Plus a futureproof profile page, scalable themed challenges, and a gamification balancing system the team could keep building on.
Sprints can be remarkably effective — a lot of ground covered in a short time. But they demand a lot from everyone involved: if a key stakeholder is missing or hard to schedule, it's easy to veer off course. Protecting that cadence mattered as much as the design work itself.