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Improving UX to create tastier dining experiences
Company: Rewards Network

As Director of Creative and User Experience, I lead the redesign of all of the Rewards Network partner websites, in an effort to address several usability issues. Using the company’s proprietary brand (iDine) as a sandbox, new features were designed that would eventually be deployed across all of the white-label websites.

My Role: UX & UI Designer
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iDine mobile screens
Desktop venue page and featured venue mobile screenDesktop venue page and featured venue mobile screenDesktop venue page and featured venue mobile screen

The challenge

Site analytics showed a bounce rate of 56.02% among mobile users and enrollment rates were on the decline month-over-month. This was largely due to the sites not being optimized for smartphones and tablets. We needed to act immediately to reverse the decline, however, development resources were limited.The team decided to take a two-phased approach to address the concerning metrics–create standalone mobile websites then proceed with a complete site overhaul the following year.

The results

Decreased bounce rate to under 50%

By re-engineering the framework and implementing UX best practices the bounce rate was reduced to 37%.

13 mobile sites deployed in 10 weeks

In partnership with the development team at Trilibis, the team deployed over a dozen mobile websites in record time.

3x increase of enrollment rates

Within the first week of launching, enrollment tripled as a result of a new mobile friendly 3-step enrollment form.

The process

Establishing the framework for a fully responsive site

Old mobile app design
Phase 1
Mobile optimized sites

The first phase was to create a separate mobile-optimized product that lived outside of the antiquated CMS platform that all the partner websites were built on. The most critical functions (search, enrollment, account management, and reviewing dining locations) were retooled and adapted to work effectively on smaller screens.

iDine responsive homepage design
Phase 2
Responsive design

Now faced with the redundancy of having three separate iDine digital products in the marketplace (on multiple CMS platforms), the solution was to transition to a fully responsive experience—a move that would free up development resources, while addressing known usability issues with the existing websites and standalone app. The responsive site would also allow us to modernize the look-and-feel, upon which I designed the new interface.

Underneath the hood

User feedback

I started the UX process by gathering and reviewing all the website comments received from our members; this would provide some qualitative data, despite not having access to user testing tools. While some comments were a bit brutal, it was necessary to see and proved to be confirmation of a less than optimal user experience.

An illustration of a negative user comment
An illustration of a negative user comment
An illustration of a negative user comment
A screenshot of iDine the user feedback spreadsheet
Card sorting and 
user goals

I then organized the member feedback by category and created a spreadsheet where the comments were further ordered by issue, partner, feature, and page. This card sorting exercise helped to identify the main user goals and where they were being impeded.

Personas, user stories, and heuristic evaluation

After user goals were defined, I then developed personas and user stories to conduct a heuristic evaluation of the partner sites. I captured my usability observations in a high-level scorecard, ranking each impeded goal by level of severity; an invaluable tool when communicating and prioritizing the problems we needed address to the broader team.

iDine personas and a screenshot of the competitor heuristic eval scorecard
Wireframes

I concluded the UX process by developing wireframes that included my recommendations on improving the pitfalls that were plaguing the site usability. 
The wireframes would be the foundation upon which the following UI components and improved functionality would be built.

iDine desktop wireframe
iDine desktop wireframe
iDine desktop wireframe
iDine desktop wireframe
iDine desktop wireframe
iDine desktop wireframe
iDine mobile wireframes
iDine mobile wireframes
iDine mobile wireframes
iDine mobile wireframes
iDine mobile wireframes
iDine mobile wireframes
Wireframes: Multiple desktop and mobile screens

More useful search

Replaced an ineffective two field search feature with a single input field, supported by three tabs, which enables users to search by location, cuisine, or features

Old venue details page
Old SearcH
Redesigned search module
NEW SearcH

Streamlined search results

Content on the search results pages was reorganized for better scanning to help users quickly identify the most relevant results. Additionally, a more intuitive sorting and filtering module was added to the top of the page—as users interact with it, results are dynamically updated.Content on the search results pages was reorganized for better scanning to help users quickly identify the most relevant results. Additionally, a more intuitive sorting and filtering module was added to the top of the page—as users interact with it, results are dynamically updated.

Old search results
Old SearcH results
Redesigned search results
NEW SearcH results

Reduced enrollment clicks

  Converted a laborious three-page enrollment process into a single page with a simple two-step form. 
Non-essential fields were removed to lessen user fatigue and promote faster signups.

Old enrollment form
OLD ENROLLMENT
Redesigned enrollment form
NEW ENROLLMENT

Simplified account center

Now vertically formatted to direct the user flow and focus visitors on a single task at a time. Use of mobile-friendly accordion panels keeps the interface clean, hiding irrelevant information, which enables details to be reviewed/updated without distraction.

Old account center page
OLD account center
Redesigned account center page
redesigned Account center

Modern venue details page

Clean and void of unnecessary elements, the newly designed page takes on more of an e-commerce product page feel.  Additionally, supplemental editorial content boosts SEO while adding brand personality.

Old venue details page
OLD details page
Redesigned venue details page
Redesigned details Page
Homepage logged-in
homepage (Logged-in)
How it Works page
how it works page
See the desktop prototype
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