Mittance Rewards
Note: Due to client privacy, the name and branding has been altered.
ROLE
Lead Visual Designer
TIMEFRAME
Collaborative three-week sprint, 250+ hours
PHASES
Research & SynthesisBusiness and customer interviews, identifying the user, defining the problem
Ideation & DeliveryBuilding out 3 solutions, rapid prototyping, usability testing
PROBLEM
Mittance is a money transfer app for sending money internationally.
Mittance needed to implement features to incentivize sending money through the app to increase usage, engagement, and user retention.
CHALLENGE
Our challenge was to create a rewards feature to drive engagement and usage of the Mittance app.
By adding a rewards program, Mittance can improve their retention rate and increase value. Users are not rewarded for using the app, so a reward system would keep them engaged and attract new users by incentivizing usage.
Phase 1
Competitive and comparative analysis
We started with a competitive and comparative analysis. We were already familiar with a few reward programs, but we wanted to detail a few different types to see what would work best for our users.
Surveys
While analyzing competitors, a series of two surveys were sent out to attempt to understand user's motivations around their core needs.
Interviews
With 8 of the survey responders, we held interviews to find out why they chose and used an app/program, what keeps them coming back, why they keep using it, and if they were motivated by the rewards themselves, or something else.
Journey maps
With the information gathered from the surveys and interviews, we were able to create a storyboard and journey maps.
Survey Results
Interview Takeaways
Phase 2
Initial concept
For my concept, I wanted my design to focus on cashback offerings. I also incorporated tiers that would offer better rewards the more the app was used, essentially rewarding users' loyalty and making them feel valued as well.
The fundamental idea of this concept is $1=1 point. After the user gets 1,000 points they are able to cash out their $10 cashback. Once awarded, they go to the next tier, which offers a higher cashback per transaction point system.
Another concept we presented to the client included a stripped-down program that showed only which rewards were redeemable and the progress made toward each reward.
Our last concept was a rewards program that made the process gamified and required users to engage more with the app to progress.
Client Feedback
When speaking with the client at the beginning of the third week, the conversation shifted from them being open to different types of rewards that were redeemable, to them wanting only either a free money transfer or a cash load. The client also didn't feel the need to continue with the gamified concept, which led to the merger of the other two concepts. For the final prototype, we merged the concept I created with the basic reward concept.
A thorough design system provided by the client allowed us to design quickly and efficiently using pre-existing styles and components.
Phase 3
The main rewards screen in the app would show the users' current progress and rewards level. The user could also redeem rewards on this screen.
When sending the next money transfer, the user would see that their reward (in this case, a waved transfer fee) will be applied.
The user would also always have the option to view their progress and see what the next level will be as they continue to send money and earn rewards.
Mobile prototype
The day we started this project was the first day the stay-at-home order came into effect. It was my first time working completely remote in UX and I was hesitant at first. After completing this project I now see remote working in a different light. Although it had its challenges, I now look forward to more remote opportunities in the future.
Using a design system was a helpful way to quickly and efficiently build out the screens. The only downside was that the client's original system was created in Sketch, but we had started with Figma for the project, so we had to import all the screens.
With the design system and component library, the team was able to build out different reward concepts and test quickly while keeping everything uniform. There were a few changes we had to make to the system after the client handed it off to us to update it to be WCAG compliant.