Transforming high-pressure decision moments into engaging, game-inspired challenges that boost performance and collaboration.

Fraud Detection: Gamifying real-time decision making

THE CHALLENGE

Design a financial fraud detection product (ACME PHOENIX 2.0) that displays critical data and motivates quick, accurate actions using gamification for fraud investigators.

Product type:

Enterprise, Gamification, Fintech

My Role:

UX Lead, Product research, deriving user requirements, concept building, prototyping.

Project Goals:

  • Design an innovative, gamified interface that transforms high-pressure decision-making moments for investigators into engaging, interactive experiences.

  • Empower users with real-time feedback and game-inspired mechanics—such as leaderboards, challenges, scoring systems, and dynamic visual cues—that accelerate decision-making, reduce cognitive load, and enhance overall investigative efficiency and accuracy.

Duration: 12 weeks

Toolkit: Axure RP, FigJam, Zoom, GSuite

Design System: IBM Carbon

SNEAK PEEK

Curious about what I made? Here’s a quick peek before we dive into the details.

Conceptualizing the solution

THE KEY CHALLENGE

The biggest challenge for this project was to identify the elements that I could gamify and their implementation.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF motivation

For this project, Nicole Sharratt, Head of Product Design at Leidos (ex FICO) acted as our customer. I used the design brief as well as my conversations with her as a resource to better understand the goals of financial fraud investigators. Three big ones were-

  • aid investigators to perform better

  • break up monotony of day to day tasks

  • encourage collaboration.

I tackled this by identifying some intrinsic and extrinsic motivators for eg. feeling a sense of belonging to a community or fearing loss of goods or rewards as a way to identify what game mechanics best support the goals.

This also proved to be a unique opportunity to be creative and resourceful when I did not have access to actual users of the product.

GAMIFICATION STRATERGY

Identifying items to gamify

Everyday case-related interactions (resolving, flagging, training completions) are reimagined as game actions, ensuring that both live case work and training simulations are engaging, competitive, and beneficial for overall team performance.

injecting ✨Delight✨

Since the goal was also to break the monotony of the tasks for investigators, it was important to make regular tasks more FUN! This was done by building a mystical narrative where investigators take on the personas of hobbits, knights and mages to defeat fraud dragons and monsters while saving the customers.

DEVELOPING THE VOCABULARY

Clear and themed terms (hobbit, knight, Mage) set the narrative context; mission statements and action prompts build a cohesive experience. I clearly state the personal impact of the investigator to make them feel connected to the broader mission of ACME.

REWARDS AND BENEFITS

Structured coin rewards, leaderboards, badges, and tenure-based multipliers drive performance, teamwork, and a culture of continuous improvement while integrating penalties to maintain accountability. Coin rewards are also multiplied based on sustained good performance and tenure to encourage employee retention and performance.

A GAMIFIED APPROACH

To transform routine investigative work into an engaging and rewarding experience, I developed two interconnected games that drive faster, more accurate decision-making and foster continuous learning and collaboration.

This dual-game approach not only mitigates the repetitive nature of the job but also builds a sense of responsibility and achievement. The gamified system encourages precise, rapid responses, fosters team collaboration, and provides an engaging framework that directly ties performance to tangible rewards—ultimately empowering investigators and driving business success.

TESTING IMPACT

Although this was a class project, I developed a test plan to evaluate the quality of the design as a future task. This plan would combine both qualitative and quantitative methods to validate the design. I would use-

  • Usability testing sessions to comparing the traditional interface against the gamified version,

    • focusing on metrics such as response time,

    • decision accuracy (fewer errors or misflags),

    • employee engagement and collaboration levels (measured by frequency of interactions and time spent on tasks).

  • Surveys and interviews to capture qualitative feedback on user satisfaction and the perceived effectiveness of game elements like leaderboards and reward systems.

  • An A/B test could also be used to gather more quantitative feedback on how the gamified design fares against the original.

    Overall, success would be defined by a measurable improvement in case efficiency, increased accuracy in decision-making, and higher levels of user engagement and satisfaction, which together would support the business goal of more effective fraud prevention and cost savings.

That’s a wrap on this project but don’t worry there’s lot more cool stuff to check out here.