Expert Points Rewards Program
CyberScholar, an online product training portal for retail sales associates wanted to change the way they handled incentives on their site. Previously, they had monthly prize drawings sponsored by brands on the site, but found users often felt like they didn't have very goods odds of winning. To help encourage users to take more training, they developed the idea for an "Expert Points" program, where users could earn points to spend on gift cards by completing client-sponsored courses.
UI Design
To help introduce the program to users, I created a simple explanatory banner, using simple icons and copy to outline how the program works. Eligible courses were listing below using the exisitng CyberScholar UI for launching content, but with added information and icons tied to the program. Additionally, an "Expert Points" banner was added to the user's profile section, where they could access the "Expert Points" page as well as go to the online catalog to spend the points they had earned.
UX Design Considerations
It was time and cost prohibitive to change the existing site architecture of the site to accommodate the program, so users would need to navigate to the program info through a banner ad. Through testing, we found users were oftentimes overlooking the banner ad so we needed to figure out a way to get users to the program page. I came up with the idea of using a modal window upon login so that users wouldn't miss this exciting new program.
Conclusion
The "Expert Points" program has proven to be quite successful. Course completions for the participating brands were significantly higher than others on the site. The inability to add "Expert Points" as a main site navigation element was a challenge, but we managed to get the users to the page with some solid UX work.