Reward Program
Design Challenge

Overview

Designing a mobile app which brings the most critically acclaimed books right to their phone. It allows users to quickly and easily digest new knowledge, expanding their perspectives and feeding their mind. Its tone of voice is playful and inviting, not elitist.

Info

  • Tags: #DesignChallenge, #ProductDesign
  • Date: July 2019
  • Status: Done

Task

Create a reward program to generate retention and a meaningful incentive for the users. The product is disruptive and an adequate reward should not be like standard bonus programs. Take into account how to reflect an imaginary brand and profound symbiosis of the rewards and offers.

Process

The process is based on the Double Diamond Theory and Lean UX.

Understanding the problem

1) User
Gathering information about the user to have a clear understanding of their needs. Followup is some of the questions that will help understand those needs.

Demographics

  • What is their age, gender, and income level (if we can find out)?
  • What do they do for a living?
  • What context they exist in, and what problems they might face in that context?
  • What are the top 3 needs that Bookify is addressing for them?

Psychographics

  • What are their favourite genre/authors/books?
  • How many books do they read per month?
  • How do they spend their free time, aside from reading? What are their hobbies?
  • What are their buying habits? Do they make impulse purchases or hunt for great deals?
  • How do they choose what book to buy next? Do they rely on recommendations from friends, are they loyal to particular authors, or do they grab the best deal they find?

Online behaviours

  • What social media sites do they spend most of their time on?
  • Where do they shop most for books? Why?
  • Do they visit any forums? Google groups? Reddit? and why?

2) Business
Gathering information about the business requirements and the existing product (if any) to have a clear understanding of the stakeholders and business needs. Followup is some of the questions that will help understand those needs.


Business

  • In which market is available?
  • What is the business model? is there any trial period?
  • What makes this product different from the rest of the similar products? Any specific feature?

Stakeholders

  • Who are the main stakeholders?
  • What are their expectations for this product?
  • What is the scope? What are the constraints?

gathering Insights

Here are some findings that are based on Market insight and Desk Research on data and habits related to other current loyalty programs.

User

  • Middle-class millennials who are living in big cities and they have a busy lifestyle. They use their phone to access the app.
  • They use the app because:
    • It's helping them to digest books faster.
    • It has a massive database of books in both ebook and audiobook versions.
    • The app is not just a book reader, it also has a social network called BookWorms for book lovers to read and discuss books together, organise events, etc.
  • The users mostly read most critically acclaimed books, they read X book per month (on average).
  • They find out about new books through the BookWorms (a feature of the app) groups and other app user buddies.
  • They also spend a chunk their free-time interacting with other app user buddies on BookWorms (a feature of the app).
  • They use BookWorms, Facebook, Twitter.
  • They also buy books from Amazon and Google Books.
  • They discuss books mostly on BookWorms and Reddit.

Product & Market

  • Available all around the world in 4 languages, English, German, French and Spanish.
  • Brings the most critically acclaimed books right to the users' phone.
  • Allows users to quickly and easily digest new knowledge, expanding their perspectives and feeding their mind.
  • Its tone of voice is playful and inviting, not elitist.
  • Users can both pay per book or choose a monthly/yearly subscription with different book credits plan. Bookify offers 1-month subscription (1 book credit) of trial.
  • Not just a book reader, it is also a social network called BookWorms for book lovers to read and discuss books together.
  • Loyalty programs have been proven as one of the most effective tactics for increasing revenue and inspiring customer loyalty.
  • 84% of consumers say they’re more apt to stick with a brand that offers a loyalty program.
  • 66% of customers say the ability to earn rewards changes their spending behaviour.

Problem Statement

"How might we create a reward program that generates retention, adequately reward users with meaningful incentives and it's profoundly symbiotic with the brand and its purpose?"

IDEATION

Based on the research we know that reward programs are nothing new. Most fall into one of four categories:

  • Points
  • Tiers
  • Social Media
  • Paid programs

Challenges

  • How to create a different and innovative reward program?
  • What are the key characteristics that make our program different?

The reward program would be a pointing system with multiple tiers, but what makes this program different from other reward programs is the key characteristics below:

  • Personalised
  • Flexible
  • Incentivised activities
  • Non-monetary
  • Help & Growth

Here are a few ideas:

A) Personalised, Rewards should be tailored based on users' interests, lifestyle and spending power.

Creating a hyper-personalized and relevant reward list based on users' taste.

B) Flexible, Users should be able to choose how to earn and burn their rewards. Having multiple options to choose would help to cover a bigger spectrum of users with different behaviours and needs.

A pointing system reward program that offers a variety of redeemable choices such as gift cards, discounts, etc.

C) Incentivised activities, Users can earn points for activities which means the reward is not limited to purchases and they can maintain their point-earning momentum in between purchases.

Achieving goals for reading-time.

Friends referral to join the program.

Joining BOOKWORMS book clubs.

Writing review for the books on BOOKWORMS.

Organising book gathering through BOOKWORM.

D) Non-monetary, Reward program should make a real difference on a global scale. It doesn’t necessarily have to offer a monetary incentive in exchange for customer purchases and loyalty. it appeals to customers values and sense of worth.

One-for-one: donating 1 book to schools in an underdeveloped country, for every purchase.

Partnering with tree planting organizations like Treepex. Users collect points until they have enough: a tree will automatically be planted for their customers without any extra cost. It makes use of a high tech tracking system with NFC tags, and carefully selected certified rangers plant and take care of the trees.

E) Help & Growth, Rewards should motivate and encourage the users by building, maintaining and boosting their reading habits.

Discounts, gift cards on relative self-improving programs such as creative writing courses, etc.

sketches

Here are a few of the main screens prototypes.

Sign-up flow and the start of the onboarding / personalisation by asking users favorites and interests.

Home, Reward and Profile screens.

Prototypes

Personalisation

  • Understanding the user starts by signing up, the more we know their hobbies and interests the more we can personalise the experience for them.
  • Knowing what genre/author they fancy would help us to suggest to them what's more relevant to their taste.

Promoting the program & self-growth

  • Utilising the top of the screen by promoting the reward program and the ways the users can earn points. Tapping on this banner will take users to "how it works" tab in Rewards screen.
  • The banner can be also personalised based on the user's interests.

Earned points & rewards

  • Here is an overview of the user status, tier, collected points and badges and set goals.
  • The list of redeemable rewards as well as user's activities that has led to collecting points. (e.g. purchase, book club memberships in BOOKWORMS, generating review and other contents in the platform, etc)

List of rewards & tutorial

  • Users can view the list of all available rewards and the points needed to redeem it. The list can include multiple categories of different types of rewards and user would be able to filter the list to their taste.
  • how it works would provide a step-by-step walkthrough on how the reward system works and how users can earn and burn points. A secondary type of short survey can be included in this section where it helps to further personalise the rewards for each user.

learning

In retrospect, I could sketch / prototype a few more screens to further elaborate on the rest of the generated ideas. Nevertheless, this challenge gave me a better understanding of the loyalty systems and helped expand my knowledge in this area.