A telecommunications company aimed to enhance their loyalty rewards program, creating more earning opportunities for customers while providing a marketplace for business clients to reach a broad consumer base. As Lead UX Designer, I developed a proof of concept for a customer-facing mobile app to browse offers and led the UX design and reskinning of the Marketplace Business Portal, enabling small to medium businesses to enrol, manage offers, and update business details.
Customers wanted more options to earn points, as the existing marketplace offered a limited selection. Meanwhile, small and medium businesses, recovering from the financial impact of COVID-19, were looking for ways to attract customers post-lockdown.
The company, with a substantial consumer and business customer base across Australia, saw an opportunity to increase engagement and loyalty by connecting these groups in an expanded loyalty marketplace, serving as an extension of their existing program.
Discovery research was crucial, as the marketplace was an innovative extension of the company’s loyalty program. As Lead UX Designer, I designed research activities to assess if the marketplace’s value proposition warranted continued investment.
Working closely with Service Design, I facilitated four remote focus groups with small to medium business owners, evaluating their perceptions of loyalty programs and testing the marketplace’s appeal. Business owners from diverse retail and service backgrounds engaged in online activities using Miro, contributing insights on the marketplace’s potential value.
I led online collaborative sessions with over 100 stakeholders across four states. Using Miro and Figma, we conducted design studios, user flow reviews, and design critiques. This collaborative approach brought early cross-functional input from Service Design, Visual Design, Accessibility, and Marketing, shaping the marketplace’s direction.
After validating the proof of concept, we progressed to building a Minimal Viable Product (MVP), collaborating with internal design teams to integrate insights into the native mobile app. I then led the reskin of the Marketplace Business Portal, collaborating closely with a third-party loyalty platform. My focus was on leveraging the telecommunication company’s mature design system and branding to design a seamless and intuitive experience for business owners to manage their offers in the portal.
During this reskin, I faced several interesting challenges, with the two most poignant being the complexity of the points system and the extensive steps involved in successfully enrolling a business owner into the loyalty program.
After stakeholder workshops, we identified essential requirements for effective business enrolment into the loyalty program. To minimise dropout risk, I designed an onboarding flow that captured only the essentials up front, allowing business owners to complete the rest of the steps in stages through a self-service model with a simple progress-tracking dashboard and flexible profile editing.
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A key hypothesis I tested in the proof of concept phase was: “If someone is an SMB owner, they’ll know their ABN and where to find it.” Usability testing revealed varied behaviours: half of participants entered their ABN directly, while others preferred searching by their business name. However, all knew exactly where to retrieve this detail, from letterheads to phone notes, everyone had a different system and method for documenting this. This insight led us to design a search feature that accommodates both ABN and business name entries.
Another key insight from the proof of concept phase was SMB’s varied understanding of the term ‘Payment Gateway’, which is essential for processing payments via a physical payment terminal or online checkout. Since a business’s payment gateway type determined eligibility for the loyalty program and was a required field in the business details form, we developed a hypothesis to assess comprehension: “The term Online Payment Gateway will be confusing to SMB’s”. Testing showed that while most participants had heard the term and could define it, their confidence was low, suggesting the onboarding flow could benefit from added guidance on this terminology and requirement.
Payment linking was a critical part of onboarding new businesses to the loyalty program, allowing customers to earn points when purchasing from participating businesses. The process, however, was complex and confusing, involving multiple steps and a verification period that could take up to 10 days.
To address this, I designed an initial flow that began with an overview screen to explain the process, helping business owners understand the necessary steps. In an effort to give our users the necessary information upfront before beginning this complex process, the screen was cluttered with too much information. Through collaboration and design critiques with the Design Systems and Accessibility teams, we iterated the copy and design to be more streamlined and user-friendly, making it clearer and easier to navigate.
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After completing initial onboarding and eligibility screens, users arrived at the Complete Profile state of the home screen. To avoid unnecessary effort for ineligible users, we prioritised eligibility checks first before arriving inside the Marketplace Business Portal. The Complete Profile dashboard then communicated remaining tasks and progress toward finalising their business profile setup.
In usability testing, we hypothesised, “SMBs will likely explore the portal before completing their profile.” Contrary to this, participants’ initial response was to continue setting up their profile, aligning with our design intent. To encourage this, I applied several psychological principles such as:
These design choices created an engaging onboarding experience, successfully prompting users to complete their profile.
In this project, I led discussions defining our ‘minimal viable accessibility’ standards, shifting the team’s perspective on accessibility from a ‘nice to have’ to a core component of quality design and development.
These discussions highlighted how accessibility not only improves usability but also aligns with best practices and cost-effective development by preventing the need for retrofitting later. This philosophy resulted in a commitment to key accessibility criteria for the MVP, including accessible colour contrast ratios and supporting Dynamic Type, a widely used accessibility setting.
Early in my process, I focused on how typography would scale with Dynamic Type and ensured consistent text contrast across varied backgrounds. Addressing these challenges at the design stage allowed us to proactively identify and resolve potential issues, preventing costly fixes during development and delivering a more inclusive user experience from the outset.
Later in the project, I began adding accessibility annotations to my design files, which improved communication with the development team and strengthened the designs by clearly defining layout, hierarchy, navigation, and focus areas. For those interested in learning more, I highly recommend Intopia’s video on accessibility annotations (watch the video here), which became my go-to reference for using this approach effectively.
The marketplace project presented a unique opportunity to design a loyalty experience that effectively connected the company’s consumer and business customers. By establishing a marketplace for small to medium businesses, we expanded customer engagement through additional points-earning opportunities, aligning with both user needs and business objectives. Through extensive research, iterative design, and close cross-functional collaboration, we delivered a mobile app and business portal that balanced ease of use with a comprehensive feature set. The final product received positive feedback from users and stakeholders alike, demonstrating that a user-centred design and accessibility-first approach can enhance engagement and loyalty in a competitive digital environment.
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