Play Points

I worked with a PM, UX designer, and a UX researcher to research existing loyalty programs and iterate from there. We quickly landed on a modular design for dynamic and time-sensitive content, which simplified the interface and made it easier to customize offers for specific countries and regions. But there were still plenty of things to explain, and that's where I came in.

My first task was naming the three main flows that a user would need. Concepts like "redeem points" were common in the industry but might take on unwanted connotations in translation. "Rewards" were also common, but Play leads wanted to reserve that word for other things. And even using a word like "get" for gaining points caused internal debate because it might feel too easy and make the whole program feel cheap.

After shopping around multiple options with leads, I consolidated the feedback and settled on "Earn,” "Use," and "Perks" because they were short and quickly communicated intent.

The top of the main landing page, where we communicated various statuses, went through many combinations of icons and strings. Eventually we learned that users didn't need the point total to be labeled "points," but they definitely didn't understand how multipliers worked without some explaining. This is how I arrived at a mixed approach, where we rely on visuals in some places, and in others we spell it out, such as "Earning X points per $1."

By far, the biggest problem was figuring out how to explain the intricacies of levels. Points earned this year counted toward a user's level in the following year, and it confused everyone. I went through multiple iterations of strings, and eventually we landed on a combination of a string and a progress bar on the main page with more specific explanations in the level benefits page.