Designing Rewards & Incentives

In this article, we review how to set up incentives and rewards in the Pattern Health Console. There are several steps to this process, including setting up achievements, defining rewards, creating milestones, and testing logic. For a full list of definitions for the vocabulary we use in this article, please refer to our Glossary. A list of relevant definitions has also been included at the bottom of the article.

In this article, we will go over how to build an achievement by designing a new User Achievement Rule. If you are looking for information about designing achievements using Measurements or Biometrics, please refer to the linked articles. 

Designing Incentives

Incentives are an important behavioral science tool for encouraging adherence in your program. With this powerful feature, you can reward participants for completing certain activities in their app. These incentives can be monetary or point-based.  

Step 1: Add Achievement

Navigate to the Incentives tab in the menu at the left side of the screen. The Incentives page will look something like this, with three tabs at the top of the screen: Achievements, Rewards, and Reports.

Click on the blue Add Achievement button. This will allow you to create a new achievement rule. This rule defines the action that a participant will be rewarded for completing.

First, you will have to create a name for the achievement. Then, you will have to choose which data type the achievement rule will look at when determining whether or not the participant accomplished this achievement.

Your options are 1. Measurements 2. Biometrics 3. Existing User Achievement Rule and 4. a New User Achievement Rule. 

For more information about designing Achievements using Measurements or Biometrics, please refer to the linked articles. 

To create a new user achievement rule, click on the + Add Event button. You will have to choose from the following menu of events:

Once you have chosen an event for your achievement, click Save. You will see your new achievement appear in the list of achievements on the Incentives page.

Step 2: Creating Your Reward

If an Achievement defines the behavior that we want to incentivize, a Reward describes what the participant will receive when they complete the behavior. To add a new reward, go to the Rewards tab at the top of the Incentives page. Click on the blue + Add Reward button. 

Come up with a name for your reward. It is a good practice to have the reward name correlate to the achievement you are rewarding. For example, in Step 1, we created an achievement called "Exercise Complete". So, we've named this reward "Exercise Reward" 

Once you have picked a name for the reward, choose the Reward Type: Points, US Dollars, Motivational. If applicable, choose the number of points/dollars you will reward.

TIP: While the first two point types are pretty self-explanatory, Motivational rewards allow you to design rewards without a quantifiable incentive. These rewards usually just feature an encouraging message and/or a goal status change. 

Once you have chosen your reward type/quantity, select any additional actions you would like to include in this reward. You can send a participant a motivational message and/or change the status of one of their open goals. For more information about creating goals for participants, check out this article. 

When you have finished designing this reward, click Save.

Step 3: Add Incentive to a Plan

Once you have designed your achievement and reward, you will have to add them to a plan using a Milestone. A milestone ties together the behavior you want to incentivize, the incentive a participant receives once they complete that achievement, and (in some cases) the goals that are met when the incentive is complete.

First, navigate to the Plans tab on the left-hand menu of the console, click on your plan, and click Edit.

Find the phase that you want to add the milestone to. Use the (+) button at the top right corner of the phase editor to add a new Milestone. 

Create a name for your milestone. This name should correlate to the incentive you designed. Then add the achievement, reward, and goal (optional) for the incentive.

TIP: For more complicated incentives, you can add more than one achievement or reward to the milestone. For example, if you wanted to reward participants for completing their exercise activity AND writing a journal entry, you could add both achievements to the milestone. 

When you have finished adding your milestone, click Save.

You have finished setting up your incentive!

Relevant Terms

Achievement

Reward 

Rule

Incentive

Milestone

Measurements

Biometrics

Goal