Journey Design for High‑Retention Communities
What if onboarding a new member felt less like filling out a profile and more like unlocking the first level of a co-op game you can’t wait to play again? That was the image running through my head while talking with Amy Jo Kim—the game-design powerhouse behind The Sims, Rock Band, and Netflix’s early social features. In our latest Talk About Your Community! (TAYC!) livestream, Amy Jo laid out why communities stall when they bolt on points and badges without first mapping a journey. Below is my deep-dive reflection on her framework and what community leaders can steal from decades of hit-game design.
Why Journey Design Outperforms Quick‑Fix Gamification
Amy Jo defines journey design as “the intentional sequencing of member experiences so that motivation rises, not fades, over time.” Too many platforms chase splashy launch mechanics—leaderboards, streaks, virtual swag—before deciding what progress should feel like. “Design the journey first,” she warned me, “then pick mechanics that fit, not the other way around.”
She contrasted journey design with generic gamification. Gamification asks, What can we dangle to make today’s click feel good? Journey design asks, What story does a member live through over the next 30 days, 90 days, year? That narrative lens forces us to think beyond vanity metrics and toward sustained transformation: Can the beginner become a contributor, then a mentor? Where does the plot twist, and what new capabilities unlock?
Key Take‑home
Start with the arc, not the ornaments. Until you know how members level‑up, skip the bells and whistles.
Build High‑Retention Communities with Super‑Fan Funnels
Every blockbuster game begins with a niche tribe of early adopters. Communities should too. Amy Jo’s super‑fan funnel screens members by behavioral evidence—not age, role, or aspirational survey answers. “I want proof they’ve tried to solve the problem before,” she said. “That’s how you spot urgency.”
A 3‑Step Funnel Template
Behavior cue: Ask for a recent action that shows commitment (e.g., “Which competitor forum did you search last week for quitting‑smoking tips?”).
Frustration filter: Invite them to vent: “What felt missing?” True super‑fans can articulate the gap.
Motivation check: Offer a small upfront task—upload a quitting milestone photo, answer a poll. Those who comply move to onboarding.
Key Take‑home
Urgency beats audience size. Fill the room with five people already chasing the goal; momentum will attract the next fifty.
Design Sticky Engagement Loops Members Repeat
A sticky loop is the repeating cycle that keeps members coming back: trigger → action → feedback → progress. Think Duolingo’s daily lesson or Peloton’s ride streak. Communities need the same pulse.
Amy Jo’s upgrade is habit stacking: bolt your loop onto a routine users already do. In a cessation community I advise, members pledge “No smoke today” each morning. We talked about stacking a second loop: at lunchtime—a habitual scroll break—the platform sends a single reflection prompt (“What craving did you beat this morning?”). Members could reply, earn empathetic comments, and leave with a dopamine‑and‑purpose boost.
Design Checklist
• Trigger: Tie it to an existing daily rhythm, not a random push notification.
• Action: Keep friction tiny—one click, short post, quick poll.
• Feedback: Celebrate replies, highlight shared wins.
• Progress: Surface streaks only if they echo intrinsic goals (days smoke‑free, lessons mastered).
Key Take‑home
If the loop doesn’t evolve, retention decays. Layer deeper challenges or new privileges as members level‑up.
Storyboard 30 Days: From Discovery to Mastery
Here’s where journey design gets cinematic.
Drawing on film storyboarding and classic game‑design workflows, Amy Jo maps four macro beats—Discovery, Onboarding, Habit, Mastery—and then breaks each one into story beats: concrete moments when the member does something that pushes the narrative forward (for example, shares their first resource or unlocks mentor status).
She borrows the term action pose from traditional animation, treating each story beat like a key frame—the decisive posture that defines the scene—while the smaller screens and micro‑interactions that connect those poses are the “in‑between” frames. Focusing on the action poses keeps the team aligned on what must be meaningful; the in‑betweens can be polished later.
Example Beats for a Creator Community
Discovery: Hears podcast clip → clicks show‑notes link.
Onboarding Beat 1: Completes 3‑question screener; welcome DM from a peer mentor.
Habit Beat 1: Receives Monday “Idea Swap” prompt; shares first resource.
Habit Beat 2: Gets feedback badge from mentor; unlocked invite to private Q&A.
Mastery Beat: Hosts own Idea Swap, tagged “Community Champion.”
Visualizing 30 days this way exposes blank spots—maybe onboarding drags, or mastery perks arrive too late. It also prevents badge spam: you award only when a beat deserves celebration.
Key Take‑home
Map a month, not merely a moment. A clear storyboard stops you from shipping half‑baked rewards that stall momentum.
Use AI to Accelerate Journey Design Safely
I asked Amy Jo how artificial intelligence fits into her relentlessly human‑centric framework. She walked me through JourneyMaker, a tool her team built to accelerate the slowest parts of journey design—identifying early personas, sketching storyboards, and stress‑testing loops—without skipping the live research that makes a community credible.
JourneyMaker uses Gen‑AI to draft synthetic personas based on real‑world interview transcripts and publicly available conversations. Once those proto‑personas exist, the system generates a first‑pass storyboard: four weeks of discovery, onboarding, habit, and mastery beats laid out like comic panels, complete with placeholder copy. It even proposes draft prompts or emails tied to each beat.
“Our teams used to spend three weeks just mapping sticky loops,” Amy Jo told me. “Now we can preview a 30‑day narrative before lunch and spend the saved time talking to real members who tighten the gaps.”
Crucially, the AI doesn’t make final decisions. After JourneyMaker drafts the experience, product facilitators step in to refine tone, validate assumptions with live interviews, and judge feasibility against platform constraints. The machine provides speed; humans supply insight and judgment.
Key Take‑home
Let AI prime the canvas, while human judgment paints in the details. Speed up hypothesis cycles without skipping real‑world validation.
Conclusion: Turn Journey Design Into Member Retention
High-retention communities don’t start with badges or dashboards—they start with people. Recruit members who have already taken concrete steps toward the goal; you’ll capture urgency instead of apathy. Storyboard their first 30 days so discovery, onboarding, habit, and mastery unfold like chapters in a book rather than scattered screens. Anchor each loop to an existing routine—lunchtime scrolls, Monday stand-ups—so engagement feels natural, not forced. Recognize progress with meaningful privileges (highlighted posts, invite-only channels, mentorship roles) rather than superficial trinkets. And let AI accelerate the grunt work—drafting personas, sketching beats—while you supply the human judgment that turns a clever mechanic into a lasting bond.
Ready to see these ideas in action? Press play on the full 45-minute interview with Amy Jo Kim to watch her live storyboard demo and learn how JourneyMaker speeds up every step. (Video embedded below.)
Glossary
Journey Design – Mapping member progress end‑to‑end so each step feels rewarding.
Super‑Fan Funnel – Screening process that attracts early adopters with urgent needs.
Sticky Loop – Repeating trigger‑action‑feedback cycle that deepens engagement.
Story Beat – A pivotal moment that advances the member’s narrative.
FAQ
What is journey design in community building?
It’s the intentional sequencing of member experiences—discovery, onboarding, habit, mastery—so motivation grows instead of flatlines.
How do I identify super‑fans for a new community?
Recruit by recent behavior (used a rival forum, asked peers for help) rather than broad demographics. A screener with action‑based questions filters them fast.
What makes a loop ‘sticky’?
A clear trigger, low‑friction action, immediate feedback, and visible progress—plus evolution over time so the loop never feels stale.
ABOUT AMY JO KIM
Named by Fortune as one of the top 10 influential women in games, Amy Jo Kim is a game designer, community architect, and innovation coach. Her design credits include Rock Band, The Sims, eBay, Netflix, nytimes.com, Ultima Online, Covet Fashion, & Happify.
Amy Jo helps entrepreneurs & innovators bring their ideas to life through at gamethinking.io. She pioneered the practice of applying game design to digital services and is well-known for her books Community Building on the Web (2000) and Game Thinking (2018).
In addition to her coaching practice, Amy Jo has taught Game Thinking at Stanford University and the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she co-founded the game design program. She holds a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Washington and a BA in Experimental Psychology from UCSD.
Show Notes
Understanding Human Behavior (5:35): There are numerous theories and frameworks when it comes to understanding human behavior, a key aspect within community and product design. Amy Jo Kim touches on building a super fan funnel, offering a step-by-step guide on her YouTube Channel. Pro tip: Figure out how to recruit individuals that show you they have a need through their behavior.
Sticky Loops (15:15): In gaming, there’s a core loop that the player will repeat and spend most of their time doing. Branching to community, there should be thought around what the main engagement activities are. The biggest mistake is having an activity the same. To make it sticky, there needs to be meaningful progress the deeper you go.
Designing the Journey (22:45): Flat habits and gamification mechanics can backfire. Connecting measurable metrics with the psychological needs of the members creates the foundation of a progression system that supports the members’ journey. Amy Jo covers the difference between story boarding and journey mapping.
Opportunity Around AI (35:04): While there are many differences between humans, there are also plenty of similarities. In closing, Amy Jo Kim shares what is on her mind currently: using gen AI to accelerate ideation, visualization, risk management, and projects. Results are already being shown that surpassed expectations through saving time.
Disclosure: This draft was generated and revised with assistance from OpenAI GPT‑4o. The author supplied the livestream transcript, directed structural changes, fact checked, and made all edits.
