UX & UI Design · 2022 · Client Work
Role:
UX & UI Designer
Tools:
Figma
OVERVIEW
Varsity is a popular American-themed sports bar and burger joint in Perth, known for attracting students, families, and sports fans alike. In 2020, Varsity introduced the Varsity League app, offering exclusive benefits to its members. Two years on, the app has gained a strong following and Varsity is committed to keeping its members engaged and fostering a sense of community among them. To achieve this, Varsity aims to provide a rewarding experience for loyal customers and strengthen its community through the app.
While Varsity has successfully attracted a strong following and initial membership sign-up through discounts and deals, they now seek to shift their approach away from solely relying on incentives to maintain member engagement.
How might we provide features within the app to ensure ongoing engagement and prevent members from uninstalling or losing interest in the app?
Inspired by fast food gamified rewards like McDonald's Monopoly, my proposed reward system for Varsity revolves around a significant American occasion, Independence Day. Embracing Varsity's sports theme, I incorporated sports culture terms like MVP and GOAT for "star" rankings. Users can accumulate stars and choose freely from a range of enticing options as rewards, such as group-friendly deals to foster community, adding an engaging element to their experience.
RESEARCH
Yes, these are fast-food reward systems, not sports bars. But there is a lot to learn from them for withstanding years, if not decades, of being effective, proving that they do work to benefit the businesses and their customers.
As a former Curtin University student, I had my fair share of going to Varsity because it was a fun place with good food. But it raises the question of how the other stores are strategically located. Who do they attract?
It turns out all stores are located in hotspot areas, located near big shopping centres, universities, and tourist spots, attracting families, students, and workers, respectively.
As a Curtin-provided real brief, we were given a design guide and brief. There, they stated the objectives that must be achieved.
I conducted 5 surveys and user interviews with age ranging from 18 to 31 years old.
The questions asked revolved around the participant's knowledge and experiences related to Varsity.
They discussed their reasons for visiting, the aspects that
make them come back, and the presence of American cultural elements. The inquiry also included discussions
about potential perks and engagement strategies for the Varsity app. Overall, the questions aimed to understand the participant's
perspectives and behaviors related to Varsity and their potential engagement with the app.
Here are the key findings:
With all the information that we have, we can now craft informed representations of Varsity customers in all of their stores through personas.
A self-employed cabinetmaker and hands-on dad of two daughters who enjoys family outings.
A university student who visits Varsity with high-school friends to relieve stress and maintain friendship.
She values human connection and frequents Varsity to meet friends and new people.
A WAFL Player with a passion for sports, often visiting Varsity with his teammates.
DESIGN
After conducting my research, the six venues of Varsity in Perth gave me the idea of a fun competition between stores with a leaderboard, just like in Harry Potter and its houses. Users can choose to join whichever store.
Now, it's all about finding that challenge everyone can participate in: Riddles?
Anyways... My tutor didn't quite get the use of riddles and that the overall idea fell short of addressing the brief. I had to look at the brief again and understand it deeply.
So where did it go wrong? The proposed idea did not incentivise members to foster the community. The idea was too community-oriented and had a competitive gap for users to win rewards. Varsity is still a sports bar, a business, and I forgot to consider the user's goals and needs.
After revisting my research insights and results, I scrapped the idea of riddles and a leaderboard and replaced it with a gamified promotion inspired by America's Independence Day and sports terms like "MVP".
I needed to prioritise how to incentivise members for their benefit while fostering a community. After a long
brainstorming, I knew the essence of the new idea had to be where users could share their rewards with other
members.
As for the delivery, I've been a lifelong NBA fan, and drafts have always fascinated me because of how they assess
a player's skills and rank them based on these measures. But sometimes, even the great ones aren't ranked first, like Kobe.
So, I thought I should reimagine this by letting users have the control to pick based on their intuition and win rewards accordingly, with tiers named by catchy sports terms. We put them in a position of enough control and excitement, a recipe for prolonged interest and increased brand affinity.
To celebrate America's Independence Day, we offer a year-long reward system that allows users to win prizes up to 50 times. The American flag inspires the system, and users can pop a star every time they make an online or in-store order once a week and have their barcode scanned.
Just like every sport has its top performers and less successful players, our rewards program has three tiers: GOATs, MVPs, and All-Stars. Each level offers fantastic deals, so there's no such thing as a "bad" reward. The only variable is how lucky the user gets when selecting stars.
Similar to America's declaration of independence on July 4, 1776, our members have the freedom to choose which reward they want to redeem with their stars. This feature keeps users motivated and excited, as they have control over their own deals and can select rewards that best suit their needs and preferences.
Perfect for groups and families, users can also create groups in-app to store the stars they win so members can choose whatever stars best suit them to use at any given time, addressing the community benefit of the promotion.
Scrapping an idea after a tough but constructive feedback was tough to swallow because I took pride in that idea, one of every designer's bad traits. But I welcomed it because it made me realise that regardless of how great I think my ideas are, there will always be ways to improve them.