Challenges

Design School course activities function as opt-in structured objectives with defined completion states and rewards. The certification quiz, AI Skills for Students, has 14 questions, a 30-minute window, a pass/fail outcome, and a named reward (First Certificate badge plus a downloadable certificate). Entry is voluntary; during analysis the user chose to take the quiz without completing the full course first. Individual Design School courses are described with duration, difficulty level, lesson count, and whether they carry a shareable certificate.

The challenge and achievement mechanics are inseparable at the point of completion, finishing a quiz always produces both a certificate (external credential) and a badge (in-app achievement). The same completion action serves both the internal achievement system and the professional social network.

Challenges sit within Design School's course catalogue, filterable by topic, difficulty, and certificate availability. Some courses are free, some are premium (marked with a crown). Each course page shows the prerequisite knowledge level and whether a certificate is awarded.

Every Design School quiz that carries a certificate produces both a shareable certificate and an in-app badge, the same completion action serves both the internal achievement system and the external social network.

Three challenges were observed in the dedicated Challenges tab. Challenge 1 (Hosting Countries): collect 2 stickers from each host country, reward: official mascots sticker, expired. Challenge 2 (2022 FIFA World Cup winner team): collect 5 stickers of the winning team, reward: digital power pack, expired. Challenge 3 (Team Captains): collect 10 team captains, reward: Panini logo sticker, 2 days remaining. A 'participate in this challenge' opt-in button changes to 'you are already participating' after tapping. Stickers only count toward a challenge if glued into the album.

The opt-in structure with a visible endpoint and a defined reward creates the defining features of the challenges mechanic, voluntary commitment, visible accountability, concrete goal. The album-gluing requirement adds an intermediate step that reinforces the core collection loop.

Challenges are in a dedicated tab in the bottom navigation. Each challenge shows reward, task description, progress counter, remaining time, and a participate status. Challenges are not accessible to guest accounts.

Two of three visible challenges had already expired at time of analysis, with no explanation of cycle cadence, suggesting calendar-based challenges tied to real-world events rather than recurring weekly resets.

Challenges are framed as self-set goals during onboarding: the user chooses 3, 5, 7, or 10 consecutive practice days, with labels (Good / Great / Amazing / Incredible). The recommended default is 5 days. After the first session, the 'I'm committed' button explicitly asks the user to affirm their chosen goal. Challenge archive access is gated behind the Plus subscription.

Framing the challenge as a user-set goal rather than an app-imposed task shifts psychological ownership. The 'I'm committed' button reinforces the user's own stated commitment rather than making a new demand. The challenge cadence (3–10 days) is calibrated to produce a first milestone within the first week of use.

The goal-setting screen during onboarding presents the challenge as a commitment the user makes before their first session. Progress displays as 'Day 1 of 10' on the home screen. Post-session, the 'Can you make it to a two day streak?' screen reinforces the challenge framing.

The goal-setting during onboarding frames the challenge as a self-made commitment, 'I want to practice 10 consecutive days' is a user declaration, not an app requirement.

Challenges are the central community engagement mechanic, accessible via the cup icon in the bottom navigation bar. Three active challenges ran simultaneously during analysis: Bring in the Animals (4 days, 50 credits prize), Leaf and Lady (active), and My Favorite View (4 days 12 hours, winner's gallery prize). Each challenge has a countdown timer, submission rules, a scrollable submissions gallery, and a voting tab. Individual community spaces can also create their own challenges, running a dual-scale system, platform-wide and community-specific simultaneously.

Two reward types ran simultaneously: credits for Bring in the Animals, and gallery feature for My Favorite View. The gallery placement is a social recognition reward rather than a currency reward, making participation motivating for users who wouldn't use credits but value visibility. The dual-scale challenge infrastructure, where any space owner can run their own competition, creates a long tail of community-specific challenges below the platform-level events.

The Challenges tab uses the cup icon in the primary navigation. Challenge history shows past results by place (1st through 10th) with profile links to winners. Voting is possible on multiple submissions simultaneously, and vote counts are not visible to voters during the active window.

92 submissions were visible for My Favorite View during analysis, the submission gallery functions as a browsable content feed, creating engagement beyond the creation and voting actions.

Strava runs many challenges at once and varies the shape of the goal rather than only its size. Within a single month we saw challenges asking for 400 minutes of running, a first 5 km run, 10 active days in a row, and 180 minutes of sweat, alongside others built around swimming, elevation, steps, and a half marathon. Joining takes one tap. Each challenge has its own page carrying the days left, the club organising it, what the challenge asks for, what is earned, and a leaderboard of the users taking part. Completion rewards are frequently digital trophies. Several challenges are organised with named partners, including Runna, Hoka, and Brooks, and the 400 minute running challenge unlocks a 2-week Runna trial on completion. Creating a group challenge or designing a custom challenge is available to subscribers.

The variety is the design choice worth noticing. The challenges running in one month span total time, a single first distance, consecutive active days, elevation, steps, and swimming, so the set covers several sports and several shapes of goal rather than one. Each challenge states a success condition and a fixed boundary, the first to the last day of the month, so completion is unambiguous. The partner challenges attach a reward that exists outside Strava, a trial of a partner product, alongside the digital trophies the other challenges award.

Challenges appear in two places, as a scrollable set of suggested challenges on the dashboard and as a dedicated tab in the Groups area, where they can be filtered by activity type, elevation gain, moving time, and distance. Featured challenges display how many users have joined, and the larger ones we saw carried more than 1 million participants each.

Strava varies the shape of the goal across a month of challenges, covering total time, a first distance, consecutive active days, elevation, steps, and swimming.