'Level up' pathway examples

Pathways are very flexible and can be constructed in several different ways to achieve your goals. Consider your audience and their familiarity with pathways as you construct them. Ask yourself...

  • How easy is it for subscribers to follow the pathway?
  • How easy is it for administrators to track participants?
  • How does the layout of the pathway reflect the program?
  • Are different weights given to different badges and pathway steps? Is that reflected in the structure of the pathway?
  • Do different pathway steps reflect similar amounts of work?

Here we've provided four different ways a pathway can be structured to award badges as pathway subscribers complete a predetermined number of activities.

level up

In the first two examples, the Bronze badge is awarded after the completion of activities 1-3. The Silver badge is awarded for completion of activities 4-6 and the Gold badge is awarded for activities 7-9. While the Bronze, Silver and Gold badges must be earned in that order, the subscriber can do activities 1, 2 & 3 in any order. Same for activities 4, 5 & 6 as well as activities 7, 8 & 9.

Example 1:

On this pathway, each step of the process is laid out with only one badge per step. This pathway uses a large amount of real estate. This approach might be useful if you have a relatively simple pathway and you want to fully display each badged activity in an ordered approach. This may encourage learners to check their progress more regularly.

example 1

Example 2:

This pathway shows how you can combine Required badges and Milestone badges on a single step/tile while also visually indicating to the subscriber that they're leveling up. This approach might be useful if subscribers to the pathway are doing grouped activities, like a semester or term of courses. They might come to check their progress periodically to stay on track.

example 2

In the last two examples, the Bronze badge is awarded after the completion of activities 1-3. The Silver badge is awarded for completion of activities 4-6 and the Gold badge is awarded for activities 7-9. While the Bronze, Silver and Gold badges must be earned in that order, the subscriber can do activities 1, 2 & 3 in any order. Same for activities 4, 5 & 6 as well as activities 7, 8 & 9.

Example 3:

This simple view pathway clearly shows that there are nine total activities and a badge will be awarded upon completion of 3, 6 or 9 of the activities. This pathway illustrates how you can use non-child prerequisites in conjunction with the steps to express movement along the pathway.

example 3
Example 4:

This pathway uses a small amount of real estate. If your pathway is large or complex, you may wish to add several types of badges to a single step/tile. This might also be helpful if you're daisy-chaining several pathways together or making an uber-pathway for admin views.

example 4