What MindPal Gets Right with eLearning

We analyse MindPal to see how you can use the app’s best features in your own learning platform. 

We love looking at other learning apps and websites for inspiration. 

Gamification is on the rise, so it only makes sense to delve into more game-based applications. 

Tear down MindPal with us and discover their best features, and how they could be applicable for your own learning solution. 

What is MindPal? 

MindPal is an app that you can use to train your brain to develop memory, attention, language and problem-solving skills. 

The application offers personalised daily workouts based on your chosen skills, and allows you to accurately map and track your development. 

While MindPal is not a learning platform encouraging more direct learning like a foreign language, it still has a lot to offer when it comes to inspiration. We wrap up some of the key features of MindPal that we like, and how you can use them in your own learning strategies and content. 

Let’s get started. 

Simple content 

All of the brain games that MindPal has created have engagement at their core. They’re mini-games that are used to encourage brain stimulation in a number of different categories. 

From math and memory to grammar and logical reasoning. 

Each game is part of a bundle for a set purpose to keep engagement each day and encourage users to return. 

Even for the most simple games, instructions are included that break down the content in easy-to-digest chunks. 

You can use this is in your own content in a number of ways. 

Firstly, you can use gamification to encourage learning, or use mini-games to test current competency. 

But you can also use the content more laterally. 

Implement simple graphics and animations to create addictive content that is fun and stimulating. 

Create competition 

One thing that MindPal does well is to create a competitive nature. Even with yourself. 

It tracks your scores and assigns a ranking (1, 2 or 3 stars). It also puts your score against other users so you can see where you rank. 

All of this works together to create a sense of competition. 

If you achieve 1 star, you’re more likely to want to return. Similarly, if you score in the top percentiles, you will likely want to keep your position. Or, you’ll want to get other aspects of your learning to the same level. 

You can easily add this to your own learning strategy. 

Competition is an essential component of learner engagement, even if the user is just competing against themselves. 

For example, you might offer retesting 1-3 months after a qualification is completed. 

You might ask a number of questions and at the end show comparative scores to the learner for when they first completed the course. 

You could use the tagline ‘Want to beat your previous score? Brush up on your knowledge.” with a link to go over aspects of the course content. 

This is an engaging way to encourage learning retention and reengagement in learning content.

Visualise clear progress 

If learners feel like they’re not progressing, or that they’re hitting the same brick wall, they will quickly become disinterested. 

MindPal works well to ensure this doesn’t happen. 

It offers a statistics dashboard where you can see your overall progress in each segment. Each one is attributed a different level so you can see where you’re outperforming, and where you need to improve. 

Equally, each time you complete a game, it’s logged on a chart so you can see how your performance changes over the course of a period of time. 

Both of these can easily be attributed to your learning content. 

People love to see their own personal progress. 

Implementing a status dashboard is an easy way to collectively track progress and demonstrate accolades and achievements. 

Tying this into gamification, you can also use badges and rewards to further incentivise this. For example, you could show greyed out badges that are yet to be collected. 

Positive reinforcement

When learners are going through content, they want validation. 

But on an even more basic level, we know that positive reinforcement encourages the behaviour we want. 

This is easily seen in MindPal, where you are congratulated and rewarded for completing workouts. 

Equally, on the other side of things, MindPal’s app encourages learners when they get answers wrong. 

At the end of each game, the user is able to review where they want wrong so that they can learn going forward. 

This is very light-touch and keeps things positive. 

These are both easily incorporated into learning content. 

While it will take a bit more time to add graphics like the one on the left below, it’s worth it for the increase in engagement. 

Make sure you invest time into engaging features like these as they can encourage learners to stay motivated. 

Put learning into the users’ hands 

One feature we spotted in MindPal’s app was the below. 

When setting up your learning profile, you’re prompted to select the skills you’d like to improve on. 

Looking at this from an organisational learning perspective, this is an interesting concept. 

Giving your learners space to be direct and specify what learning content they want to engage with can help you recommend relevant learning and encourage engagement, but it can also help with linking performance to learning too. 

Allowing your learners to take control of their own development is a fantastic springboard for better progression. 

Wrapping up

eLearning applications like MindPal work because they understand how people use their phones and engage with content. 

There is a lot to be learned from these apps. 

Instead of offering the same stuffy learning courses and forcing users down predetermined learning paths, allow more flexibility and creativity in your learning. 

Copy how MindPal engages users and enables gamification elements to keep them entertained, and most importantly, coming back for more. 

Remember, we can support you to achieve your key learning goals. 

We help our customers whether they want to build an LMS from scratch, customise and develop a current LMS, or simply migrate an existing LMS over to Totara or BuildEmpire. 

See what our customers have to say about us, or book a demo with us to see our platform in action.