Anisha Shukla

UI/UX Design

Housing.com

Gamifying Pay on Credit to Boost User Retention & Engagement

Introduction

Housing.com is one of India’s leading digital real estate platforms. It connects buyers, tenants, landlords and agents, offering a seamless way to discover, rent or buy properties across cities. Over time, the brand has evolved from being just a property listing platform to offering a more holistic housing ecosystem.

My Role and Ownership-

• Milestone flow logic
• Reward tiers and progression
• High fidelity screens and interactions
• Design system tokens and components
• Illustration set and icon library

Where I Contributed-

• User interviews

• Problem discovery

• Analytics interpretation

• Final handover specs

Project

This project explores how gamification can enhance the Pay on Credit experience and encourage users to return to the app more frequently. The idea is to create a sense of progress and achievement through a milestone journey, where users complete small tasks, earn rewards and feel motivated to continue engaging with the feature. Over time, this experience will help build a stronger emotional connection between the user and the product, making Pay on Credit feel more personal and rewarding.

Problems

Current user engagement and repeat usage of the Pay on Credit feature are limited. There is a need to:

Introduce gamification to make the experience engaging and interactive.
Increase stickiness by motivating users to use the feature regularly.
Identify effective steps, rewards, and incentives that appeal to users and encourage continuous participation.

The challenge lies in designing a gamified experience that feels natural, enjoyable, and meaningful rather than forced or purely transactional.

Goals

Primary Goals:

Increase user retention through engaging, gamified experiences.
Boost overall app usage and user interaction with Pay on Credit.

Key Metrics for Success:

Growth in active and returning users.
Higher frequency of Pay on Credit transactions.
Increased time spent within the app.

Gamification Objective:
Introduce milestone rewards that offer users incentives while making daily financial actions fun. Over time, new and personalised features can be added to keep users connected and motivated.

Impact

The gamified Pay on Credit experience aims to:

Increase monthly retention by motivating users to return for new milestones.
Boost engagement through interactive visual progress and rewards.
Build emotional connection between users and the app by blending financial functionality with playful design.

Through continuous updates and personalization, the gamified journey will sustain user interest and transform Pay on Credit from a simple utility into an enjoyable, rewarding experience.

Process &
Context

Design Concept-

The central gamified experience revolves around a milestone journey, represented visually as a road or path.

Users advance along the path by completing various tasks such as making payments or exploring app features.
Completing all six steps allows them to reach the final milestone, where they receive a cashback or other rewards.
The journey resets monthly, encouraging continuous engagement.

Milestone game placement

Competitor
Analysis

Key Insights from Competitor Analysis:
Across successful apps, gamification works best when users can visualise progress, receive instant rewards, and feel part of a recurring loop. Apps like CRED and Starbucks build loyalty through tiered rewards and progress tracking, while Snapchat and gaming apps sustain daily engagement through streaks and collectibles. These insights helped shape the Pay on Credit milestone journey, focusing on visible progress, achievable rewards, and consistent motivation.

User Flow

Starting from the POC payment page to the next payment nudge.

Concept & Style guide

Concept Overview-

In Finopoly, the user’s financial journey is visualized as a road filled with milestones that lead to their final destination. Each step represents real progress made through transactions on the Pay on Credit app.

As users move along this path, they reach milestones that unlock cashback, offers, and exciting rewards. The experience turns regular financial activity into a fun, goal-oriented journey, where every completed milestone brings users closer to building their final monument, a symbol of their financial achievement.

A roadmap shows milestones representing transaction goals.

Each completed milestone unlocks rewards or cashback.
The final monument marks success at the end of the journey.

Monopoly Inspiration & Moodboard

Inspired by Monopoly, Finopoly replaces properties with monuments that grow grander as users progress. Players start with smaller monuments and unlock larger, iconic ones by completing transactions.

Each level lasts a month, and finishing early unlocks the next stage later. With every transaction, users collect diamonds, redeemable for offers and rewards, keeping the experience exciting and rewarding.

Players progress from small to grand monuments.
Transactions earn diamonds that can be redeemed.
Completing milestones unlocks new monuments each month.
The theme combines fun, finance, and achievement.

Screens

These screens illustrate the step-by-step gamified payment journey within the app. Users are guided from the moment they tap the gamification banner to completing payments and collecting rewards. Each step highlights progress, engagement, and milestones, showing how transactions are turned into an interactive, rewarding experience.