Research result, wireframes, interactive prototype, high fidelity mocks, presentation
Duration
Background
The Starbucks China were facing the the problem that their membership program was not successfully recognized or continuously used in their mobile app. The complex system needed to be hierarchized and visualized in both home screen and membership introduction screen.
I was the one more focusing on the home screen design, in this case, I'll talk mainly about the design process of the home screen.
What's the current interface look like?
In home page, the different color were used to stand for different tiers.
The original design has 6 screens to show the membership rewards in detail. 2 screens each for 3 tiers. The elements used in each tier are all different. Rules written in text are heavy and complicated to understand.
Understand the Rules
I summarized the rules of the membership program.
Define Problem
Research
User Research
The PM of Starbucks China pointed out that they are more focusing on turning the first time users / entrance level users to Jade and higher tiers members, I conducted the user research with entrance level users.
Insights from the user research:
Underemphasized tier status and pathways to upgrade.
Unnoticeable member benefits
Chaotic elements concepts
User testing Results
Competitive Analysis
I firstly go straight to the Starbucks app I use almost everyday to see what's the difference. I didn't realize the membership program could be this hard to understand. When I open the app, I realized that the Starbucks US got much intuitive rewarding rules: $1 spend -> get 1 ⭐. Redeem 25⭐ to get a drink and the more stars get better rewards. No tiers, no milestone rewards, no cry.
Then I looked into other products' membership system, mostly China based that fits better the culture locally.
There are mainly two types progress bar showing on the member home screen.
1. Whole member journey (lowest tier to highest tier)
Current tier with collected points
Member benefits are shown more or less based on different scenarios.
Goal
How might we
We had our how might we questions immediately after the research. Since the home screen got something in higher priority (CTA for placing an order or delivery), we don't want to make member info too detailed in the home screen. The main attempt is to have uses notice the member status after using and attract them to click for details, so we can direct them to the member detail screen.
With the HOW MIGHT WE question 1, I continued with a survey to find out what info users care most. Surprisingly, the results is different to the insights from the user interview. Rewards owned ranked much lower than expected. This is conflict to what I hear from interviewees. I looked back to the survey copy to see if I misled in the question.
By confirming with survey taker, option rewards owned cause misunderstanding. Rewards in this case refers to coupons that could be redeemed, coupons owned doesn't mean the actual thing you already got. After I changed it to Redeemablerewards , the result is much different then.
#1 Stars already earned
#2 Current tier
#3 Rewards redeemable
#4 Stars earning from this purchase
#5 Benefits of current tier
#6 Next Reward
Synthesize
With all the insights got from the researches, it's obvious that the home screen needs a much clearer indicator about their current tier instead of only using different background colors. And also stars earning from the purchase at the time and redeemable rewards.
The information hierarchy will be like:
Stars already earned -> current tier -> Redeemable Rewards -> Stars earning from the last purchase.
Ideation
I explored the progress visualization in 3 groups and have them tested with 15 people. 66.7% of them thought Group 3 option A is more clean, intuitive and included with the all the info they think are important.
Why not presenting the whole journey?
There are a lot of loyalty program designs presenting the whole journey (all tiers) in a progress bar, but in this case,
1. as the research result shows, many of the the user interviewees complained about the long journey to reach the highest tier.
2. Coffee still not yet indispensable in China. I don’t want such a long progress bar scares entry level users away. Separate the journey into rewardable milestones give a better motivation for purchases.
3. Balance the content in home screen and detail screens. There are other module in home page that has a higher priority.
Solve confusion of star amount with decimal
As said, entrance level users were confused about the decimal in the star amount. There are 4 reasons they felt confused.
1. The number is complicated with decimal and slash
2. Users don’t know about the rules to earn stars (50 rmb purchase →1⭐️, if less than 50 bucks purchase, decimal shows up) .
3. The context was not clear because there were no clear signifier of star, or tier.
4. The progress bar is not clearly indicating the amount of numbers
The design
1. Only show the star amount without slash
2. Based on the proximity principle, on top of the star amount, indicate the current tier info. Also indicate 4.5 is the amount of star, using star symbol next to it.
3. Clearly indicate the star amount in the progress bar.
4. Show the star amount earning from the current purchase.
Iteration
Motivate users by dynamic CTA
The silver tier was easy to join. There were good amount to users registered to be silver member, but retention rate is much lower than expected. The client wanted to get more users pay attention to their progress and get them involved in the Jade.
Obviously the long journey making users less motivated to purchase via app and upgrade. It’s better to set a goal that’s not too hard to reach. The dynamic CTA was designed to motivate user according to their situation.
I did a user journey map to explore users thinking and needs when they at/near different milestones.
