Aug 2023-Present Day
Project Alloy for Upside
Product / Design / Research / User Testing
Project Alloy is a design led, experimental project with the goal of re-imagining the way users discover offers in the app.
I lead this project alongside a researcher.
How does Upside work today?
For a user to get cash back, they browse the app, claim the cash back offer they want, then transact at that business.
We then match the payment method they used to the same one they have on file and issue their cash back to their Upside account.
What that experience looks like:
As you can see from this screen, we’re only showing 2 offer cards before scroll.
We’re also not doing anything to to personalize the app or get the right offers in front of the user.
So, we got curious.
How might we organize our app architecture to align to our users’ mental model?
How might we personalize and curate offers for our users?
How could we help users explore inventory and build the app in a way that accommodates adding more and more business types?
How could we improve our search experience?
We did market research and looked at how other apps are solving similar challenges.
And designed an experience we felt good enough about to start getting feedback on.
Internal Stakeholder Interviews
For the project to succeed, we needed stakeholder support. We interviewed around 20 Upside stakeholders to get feedback.
We adjusted the design as patterns emerged.
We then presented our findings to the VP of Design and Product and were ready to start user testing.
Design. Test. Repeat.
Over the course of 12 weeks, we’ve run 10 user testing sessions, iterating after every test.
Original HomeIntroducing carousels
Testing 'For You' pageMaking 'For you' HomeThe evolution of Explore
Testing quick redeem pageIntroducing Browse conceptAdjusting nav IAAdding categories
The evolution of Map
Testing separate Map tabAdding images to restaurantsRemoving For You tabCombining Map and ExploreThe evolution of Home
What’s next.
Prioritize and Develop
The designs for Home, Explore and Map are all packaged up and ready to be picked up by engineering.
We anticipate a major increase in transactions and overall joy of use.
Search
We’re currently following this same process for Search, bringing improvements and insight to the experience based on rapid user testing.
Outcome
Design Led 💰
Alloy is the first project in Upside’s history to be led by design and research.
Design Sprints 👀
Alloy is the first project to run in design sprints. 2 other teams have adopted this method of working after Alloy’s success.
User Testing 💻
We conducted 12 user testing groups in 3 months, resulting in over 100 sessions. Other teams at Upside do 1 user test, at most, before launching.
Product Minded Design 🧠
Alloy is the first project at Upside that wasn’t started with a product PRD. Design and Research determined what the problem was and how to solve it, with the Director of Product only involved at a review level.
User centered 👏
This is the first project that centered it’s solution around the actual users of our app and what they need.