_Project Overview
A new Product Lead was bright into the company and he led the charge to converting our legacy team members into a new initiative as the "Loyalty" team. As their most tenured personnel, I supported the spearhead that was composed of new employees to continue cementing the relationship between the new Caesars Digital subsidiary and Caesars Entertainment. This encapsulates much of the early efforts in this initiative.
Team/Duration: 8 (x3 UX Designer, x2 Front-End Developers, x1 Product Manager, x2 QA Engineers) / 2 months.
Tools: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, UserTesting.com, Confluence, JIRA.
Methods: Information Architecture, Concept Map, Usability Testing, A/B Testing, Wireframes, Visual Mock-up, Rapid Prototype, Iteration
"... effort revolved around increasing
customer education and awareness ..."
_The Challenge
Early feedback regarding Caesars Rewards' use in the Sportsbook App is that customers did not know how it worked and what value it provided to them. This spurred the inspiration of creating a new Loyalty RA (Requirements Area) that would be composed of three feature teams. The challenge was figuring out what to provide customers in order to better generate awareness of Caesars Rewards' Rewards Credit system, its impact on the sportsbetting journey, and how to provide options in its usage.
TASK
There were several things that needed to be done:
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Determine Feature Roadmap
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Anchor efforts with Epic and User Stories
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Prioritize features based on requirements and dependences
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Validate intended compositions and iterate
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Plan for next strategic actions post-release
SOLUTION
The initial concepts that won the hearts of executives involved my leveraging a video animation that showed a celebration of a customer upgrading to the next Rewards Tier. But the reality is that we needed to build up to that kind of feature. So the immediate effort revolved around increasing customer education and awareness of Caesars Rewards.
To assist with balancing the design with the rest of the dense sportsbook app, I had the support of two fellow UX Designers who worked on the newer system long before I did (I was the Design Lead for the old legacy system).
_Research
Research was initially barebones, leaning on Caesars Sportsbook's design system, while also using the lack of Caesars Rewards awareness as an opportunity to both conduct design and grow a research funnel over time. With the help of our new User Research funnel, we leveraged both Usabilla and UserTesting.com to gain valuable feedback for both executive support and further adjustments to our design compositions.
A/B TESTING
This specific test was created due to opposition from a stakeholder regarding feature priority on the bet slip. We needed user feedback to determine which of the two compositions better supported their intention with the given Bet Receipt, versus the marketed alternative that sought to operate like a product end-cap that you would often see at a retail store. Although the results were almost 50/50, it tilted in favor of preserving the customer's intended experience instead of one where they were marketed something else.
USABILITY TESTING
With the inclusion of a new Product Manager who had previous experience as a UX Manager, we were able to further push for user research. This one revolved around the main page for the customer's Caesars Rewards account in the sportsbook app. We were looking to include more features in this hub and we sought to determine if this intended flow still made sense. Based on the contributing NPS score, we were still mostly in the green.
_Design
Previously leading the legacy efforts on the previous sportsbook app, I was once again a learner in this more robust and cohesive new product. This new sportsbook app that was rapidly spreading to various States possessed more UX Designers and also a Design System. To assist me with how to better align my designs to the overall product ecosystem, I had the support of two Senior UX Designers, Ross Crutchley (Native) and David Knapp (Web), who led their respective design systems. These two UX Designers would be my final approval before transferring to development.
COMPOSITION & ITERATION
Deriving the some of my instructions from the one-pagers and Epics created by the Product Lead, Product Manager, and directly collaborating with stakeholders, I leveraged the pre-existing Design System to maintain the look and feel of the app.
Some of the challenges I faced in this process was maintaining a consistent process for approval and delivery. The increased organizational density proved that a consistent flow of design and approval was erratic, but we managed to put out designs in a quick manner, despite the protest from others that things arrived too late.
DIAGRAM
To support the developers in addition to the Inspect feature found in Figma, I maintained my approach of having flow diagrams and interaction explainers. Leveraging FigJam over my typical tools of LucidChart or Gliffy, I was able to pull material together that would assist developers in engineering the desired interactions.
The other UX Designers across the organization do other methods of conveying their intended design's functionality, whether leaning into their rapid prototypes or discussing their work through meetings or one pagers. My leanings tend to be in visual architecture such as these. This helped as a conversational aide that let developers cross-reference with the Figma workfile and reduce meeting times.
_Outcomes
NEXT STEPS
While the roadmap for Loyalty is extensive, I don't fully agree with the heavy leaning into mobile devices. I personally had built a relationship with Caesars Entertainment's innovation center "Black Fire Innovation Labs" that often gets overlooked by the majority we speak to. My UX peers recognize the value of this Lab and hopefully my Product Manager will pursue further relationships in order to diversify our platforms and approach despite the mobile-leaning efforts charted by our Product Lead.
The two screens on the right showcase some of the more extensive ideas that need to be pursued for a strong customer experience. Instead of constantly trying to add new features, auditing and strengthening existing features is a better approach.
The above screen is in regards to the currency exchange system which we have in the sportsbook app, I did a UX audit for greater accessibility.
The below screen is the initial planning sequence of a deep-dive for deeplinking that I accidentally charted outside of the intended task, but serves to cut down on research efforts later when Caesars Rewards is further integrated.
