Appearance
Distinctions
Specifications: Introduction
This documentation details the specifications for IxDF distinctions, in particular, their visual design, where they appear, and the "ranking" of the distinctions. Instead of documenting the specifications in an issue (which is transient and will be closed once implemented), it makes more sense to have a permanent record of distinction specifications for future review and reference.
Visual design (sizes, file type, file naming, etc.)
Distinctions have a renewed visual design and are currently served in 2 variations: as awarded Badge or as Ghost-Badge.
Distinction Icon image file-type
Distinction icons are .svg files. This vector image format means that it will look great on both low-res and high-res displays. It also means that the large distinction image can be blown up to any dimension in the future.
Don't forget to set css classes to scale it to its correct size.
Example usage in templates
html
<!-- Usage for an awarded Badge -->
<img class="image image--large"
src="{!! $badge->getEarnedUrl() !!}"
alt="{{ $badge->getDistinction()->getName() }}"/>Example usage in PHP to get URL
php
[
// 'ghost' version for not awarded distinctions
'distinctionImageUrl' => (new AssiduousLearnerAward())->getNotEarnedUrl(),
]Distinction Icon file naming
All badge image files are currently located in our repository in resources/img/distinctions/badges/*.svg
Badge Icons naming
The badge icon for an awarded Badge is fetched via getEarnedUrl(). It expects by default the pattern <DISTINCTION-SLUG>.svg, e.g. assiduous-learner-award.svg. Similar the non-awarded Badge Icon is fetched with getNotEarnedUrl(), following the naming pattern <DISTINCTION-SLUG>-ghost.svg, e.g. assiduous-learner-award-ghost.svg.
If there is the need for custom naming at some point, consider overriding getEarnedUrl() and getNotEarnedUrl().
Where distinction icons appear
Distinction icons will appear in many places in order to incentivize members to earn them. They will appear in discussion threads (as badges below the members' names), member profile cards, member profile pages, and in the Distinctions page. If the new "hover card" UI is implemented, distinctions will appear there as well.
Specific documentation of the distinction icons in the different pages will be provided below.
Ranking of importance
Distinctions follow a universal ranking of importance. This means that some distinctions will be deemed of higher "prestigiousness" than others.
This is required because in some areas (for example, in discussion threads), we only want to fit a maximum of, say, 5 distinction icons. Having too many icons will overwhelm those pages. Hence, we set a universal ranking in order to determine which distinctions to display, if the member has earned more distinctions than a certain element or page can display.
The ranking of distinctions reflects:
- the relative challenge of earning the distinction, i.e., harder distinctions will be ranked higher; and
- the behaviors we want to incentivize members to perform (e.g., "Social Impact Award" is ranked higher than "IxDF Distinguished Scholar" even though the latter is much harder to achieve, because we want to incentivize members to post on our discussion forums)
Distinctions ranking
Here is the list of distinctions, ranked by their level of importance (most important appears first):
- IxDF Honorary Distinction
- IxDF Book Author
- IxDF Article Author
- IxDF Design League Coach
- IxDF Educational Partner
- IxDF Thought Leader
- IxDF Continent Manager
- IxDF Country Manager
- IxDF Meetup Organizer
- IxDF Local Leader
- Social Impact Award
- IxDF Distinguished Scholar
- Outstanding Learner Award
- IxDF Career Program Completer
- Best in Class
- Top 10% Course Taker
- Assiduous Learner Award
- Certified Course Completer
- IxDF Masterclass Learner
- IxDF Community Influencer
- IxDF Local Group Member
Trigger conditions
Here are the trigger conditions for each distinction, i.e., what is required for a member to earn it. Note that canceled members will have all distinctions deleted.
IxDF Honorary Distinction
Condition: Earn all other distinctions. This is currently impossible (since one would have to be Continent Manager, Country Manager, etc.). However, we hide the condition for earning this distinction by saying members who "contribute to the community" will earn it. This thus serves as that impossible goal that makes the members want to do their best and contribute to the IxDF. We might want to review the condition for this distinction in the future.
IxDF Book Author
Condition: Publish an IxDF book or book chapter. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
IxDF Article Author
Condition: Publish a UX Daily article. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
IxDF Design League Coach
Condition: Become a Design League coach. Note that this distinction will be deleted once a person resigns as coach.
IxDF Educational Partner
Condition: Have at least 12 awarded referrals OR the Educational Partner role. Is checked on Referral updates and deletion, as well as on attaching/detaching the Educational Partner role to members.
IxDF Thought Leader
Condition: Have at least 6 awarded referrals, no matter the source. Badges for members are validate on Referral updates and deletion.
IxDF Continent Manager
Condition: Become a continent manager of one of the continents. Note that this distinction will be deleted once a person resigns as continent manager.
IxDF Country Manager
Condition: Become a country manager of one of the countries. Note that this distinction will be deleted once a person resigns as country manager.
IxDF Meetup Organizer
Condition: Organize a meetup in any Local Group, and the date of that meetup has passed. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
IxDF Local Leader
Condition: Become a local leader of one of the Local Groups. Note that this distinction will be deleted once a person resigns as local leader.
Social Impact Award
Condition: Meaningfully contribute to discussions at least 50 times. Starting a new discussion thread, posting a comment on a discussion thread, and replying to a comment all count as one meaningful contribution if the post, comment, or reply contains at least 10 words. Lesson discussions, local group discussions, event discussions, and discussions in the IxDF Discussions forum all count towards the "contributions". This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
IxDF Distinguished Scholar
Condition: Complete at least 30 courses. Completing a course means that the member must have scored at least 70% and generated the Course Certificate. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
Outstanding Learner Award
Condition: Complete at least 15 courses. Completing a course means that the member must have scored at least 70% and generated the Course Certificate. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
IxDF Career Program Completer
Condition: Complete at least one Career Program, formerly known as Learning Path. Completing a Career Program means that the member completed all Courses and attended all Master Classes attached to it. It will be awarded when the Certificate for the last missing Course or Master Class is generated. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
Best in Class
Condition: Complete a course with a score of 100%. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
Top 10% Course Taker
Condition: Complete a course with a score of at least 90% but less than 100%. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
Assiduous Learner Award
Condition: Complete at least 5 courses. Completing a course means that the member must have scored at least 70% and generated the Course Certificate. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
IxDF Master Class Learner
Condition: Complete at least one IxDF Master Class. Completing a Master Class means that a member is either registered to a Live Master Class when it ends or is registered to an On-Demand Master class. We don't track if the full Master Class video was watched.
Certified Course Completer
Condition: Complete at least 1 course. Completing a course means that the member must have scored at least 70% and generated the Course Certificate. This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
IxDF Community Influencer
Condition: Meaningfully contribute to discussions at least 10 times. Starting a new discussion thread, posting a comment on a discussion thread, and replying to a comment all count as one meaningful contribution if the post, comment, or reply contains at least 10 words. Lesson discussions, local group discussions, event discussions, and discussions in the IxDF Discussions forum all count towards the "contributions". This distinction will stay with the member for life (until he/she cancels their membership).
IxDF Local Group Member
Condition: Join at least one Local Group as a member, or become the Local Leader of a Local Group. Note that this distinction will be deleted if a person is no longer part of any Local Group.
Hover and click interaction of "badge" icons
For the 20px by 20px distinction icons, there will be a universal hover and click behavior.
On hover, a tooltip will appear with the following text:
text
[distinctionName] distinction: Click to learn moreFor example, if you place your mouse over an "IxDF Meetup Organizer" 20px by 20px icon, the following tooltip text will appear:
text
IxDF Meetup Organizer distinction: Click to learn moreOn click of the badge icon, a modal dialog of that distinction will appear: 
Distinctions page
Along with the distinctions revamp, there is a new Distinctions page. The Distinctions page is a one-stop page for members to see the distinctions they have earned and track the progress of the distinctions they have not yet earned.
Progress ring
Each distinction in progress has a progress ring. While some distinctions' progress are easy to track (e.g., IxDF Community Influencer, Assiduous Learner Award), others cannot be tracked in a meaningful way (e.g., IxDF Local Leader, Best in Class). For the latter, we will simply display a flat 5% progress in the ring. This will show some progress in the distinctions.
Here are the distinctions that cannot be tracked meaningfully, and for which a 5% progress ring will be shown in the Distinctions Center:
- IxDF Honorary Distinction
- IxDF Design League Coach
- IxDF Continent Manager
- IxDF Country Manager
- IxDF Meetup Organizer
- IxDF Local Leader
- IxDF Book Author
- Best in Class
- Top 10% Course Taker
- IxDF Local Group Member
Here are the distinctions whose progress can be tracked meaningfully, as well as details on what to track in order to display the progress ring:
Social Impact Award
- Number of discussion contributions that contain at least 10 words / 50 * 100%
IxDF Distinguished Scholar
- Number of completed courses / 30 * 100%
Outstanding Learner Award
- Number of completed courses / 15 * 100%
Assiduous Learner Award
- Number of completed courses / 5 * 100%
Certified Course Completer
- Highest % score among currently enrolled courses / 70% * 90%
- If the highest % score is more than 70%, display 90%
- If the member has zero enrolled courses, show progress of 5%
IxDF Community Influencer
- Number of discussion contributions that contain at least 10 words / 10 * 100%
Distinction badges on member profile cards
Member profile cards will be updated to display distinction icons. Due to the limited space of member profile cards, a maximum of 8 distinctions will be displayed. The top 8 distinctions, according to the ranking above, will be displayed for members who have earned more than 8 distinctions. The order of the distinctions will also follow the ranking above, with the most important distinction shown first.
8 distinctions
Sample profile card with 8 distinctions: 
6 distinctions
Sample profile card with 6 distinctions: 
0 distinctions
Sample profile card with 0 distinctions: 
Distinction badges on discussion threads
Similar to member profile cards, discussion threads will also show distinction icons under the members' names. A maximum of 5 distinctions will be shown. The top 5 distinctions, according to the ranking above, will be displayed for members who have earned more than 5 distinctions. The order of the distinctions will also follow the ranking above, with the most important distinction shown first.
Discussion with 5 distinction
Sample discussion post with 5 distinctions: 
Discussion with 3 distinctions
Sample discussion post with 3 distinctions: 
Discussion with 0 distinction
Sample discussion post with 0 distinctions: 
Workflow of awarding & revoking Distinctions
Currently we have a mixed approach on when to award a Distinction
Instant Distinctions
Instant Distinctions are awarded instantly based on Member Events. So when a member certificate is generated for a completed course, it will check instantly for that member if any course based distinction was earned, e.g. Distinctions for 1,5,15 or 30 completed Course.
If a course enrollment is deleted for a member, we also check if the member still earns these distinctions and remove invalid badges. Similar validation behavior is implemented for referral based distinctions as IxDF Though Leader
Examples
- Course based:
AssiduousLearnerAward,BestInClass,CertifiedCourseCompleter,IxDFDistinguishedScholar,OutstandingLearnerAward,Top10PercentsCourseTaker - Local group based:
IxDFLocalGroupMember - Referral based:
ThoughtLeader,EducationalPartner
Deferred Distinctions
Once per hour we have a scheduled command called member:distinction:updates. This command takes Distinctions implementing the interface, calling the findMembersToAwardBadge() and findMembersToRevokeBadge() to get 2 lists of all members who should get the distinction badge awarded and revoked.
Some of these search query are very resource intense and have negative impact on our web transaction times, so Instant Distinctions are preferable.