MDPM 883 · Team Zig · Joann Joseph
Blue Rewards today
The balance is here but nothing says what it can reach. The hero is a promotion and the links below it are navigation. There is no reason to open this unless you already have an errand.
The proposal · step 1 of 6
Day one
Feature 1 · discovery ranked by reach
Same tab, same balance, different content. Reach is the gap between the Points Balance and what a reward costs, so the same reward sits in a different band for different members. Nothing was declared to get here.
The proposal · step 2 of 6
Day one
Feature 1 · the member says what they want, in their own words
The first question asks what the member is trying to purchase, not what they are saving toward. Members come to a loyalty product to get something and to see what their options are, and saving is one way there rather than the point of it. The rest are the fields a Goal needs anyway, so this is not onboarding. Every answer is optional and the free text is where a sentence like flexible on dates but it needs to be direct becomes a constraint. Me and one other opens the shared Goal, which is a different product, not a setting. The answers resolve into the target underneath: two seats, within two years, 90,000 points, about 26 months at his rate. The caution at the top is lifted from Scenario 4, which states a Goal reserves nothing. Tasks: Create a Reward Goal · Update a Reward Goal.
The proposal · step 3 of 6
Two weeks in
Feature 2 · Goal-relative decision preview
Fare comparison already exists on the travel partner's site, so this screen is not a second one. What the partner cannot do is price a fare against this member, because it does not know the Goal, the balance or the date. Those live here. So the comparison here is the Goal against everything the member is weighing, in one unit: months of Lisbon. The hotel night costs seven of them, the grocery card four. Nobody is told which is better and nobody is stopped from taking any of them. The handoff is the open question. The moment the member taps out to book travel, the Goal stays behind, and it should not. Tasks: Compare Redeemable Rewards · Understand the Reward Value · Choose a Redeemable Reward.
The proposal · step 4 of 6
Six weeks in
Feature 4 · progress framing, with a Goal
The bar answers where am I. The stages answer what is next, which is the question a bar at 27 per cent cannot answer without a dead middle. Both are on screen because members want the summary and the step at the same time, and the stages are named parts of this trip rather than other rewards. Tasks: Track progress toward a Reward Goal · Check Points Balance.
The proposal · step 5 of 6
Nine months in
The important user task
Points first, then permission. Availability and conditions are checked at the moment of redemption because the Goal never reserved anything. Tasks: Choose a Redeemable Reward · Redeem the Reward.
The proposal · step 6 of 6
Nine months in
Feature 4 · self-comparison
The regulators who have studied engagement mechanics attribute harm to competition and variable rewards, not to self-set goals or visible progress. This is the mechanic that gets the engagement without the flagged risk.
Not every member declares a target, and the product cannot only work for the ones who do. Same first screen, same close, no Goal in it anywhere.
No Goal anywhere
Both halves, without a Goal anywhere
Marie never declares a target. She gets the same first screen, chooses from what is within reach and gets the same close against her own record. If the prototype only feels finished once a Goal exists, the scoping is wrong.
Danny has been a member for years. This is a separate arc that shares none of his screens: the first thing someone meets when they sign in for the very first time, before the product knows a single thing about them.
First sign in
New feature · the form as a personalization instrument
A new member has no transaction history, so a catalogue ranked by reach has nothing to rank on. Spotify solves the same cold start by asking for genres before it has a single play, and this is that screen for a rewards catalogue: twelve partner and product categories, pick three or more, thirty seconds, no account linking and no permissions asked for. The form is doing two jobs. For the member it makes the first screen worth opening. For the product it is the cheapest, cleanest personalization data there is, because it is declared rather than inferred, and a handful of taps do work that months of behavioural tracking would do worse. The picks are not a filter, so nothing is hidden, and they can be changed any time. That is what makes asking for them legitimate. Nothing here asks for access to the member's accounts or their spending. The product asks a question and the member answers it, which is the whole exchange.
The rest of what the product does. Each one is reached when a member needs it, not as another step on the way to a Goal.
New mechanic · a Goal two people earn toward
Scenario 4 opens with Danny and his wife planning this vacation together, and nothing in the design had used her until now. A shared Goal is cooperative rather than competitive, so it serves the social motive without ranking anyone against anyone. Neither person spends more than they were going to. Tasks: Create a Reward Goal · Update a Reward Goal.
Feature 2 · Goal-relative decision preview
The Offer card, the terms and the conditions all exist today. What is new is the middle row. An Offer stops being described in points and starts being described in weeks off Lisbon, which is the only unit that answers the question the member is actually asking. The grocery Offer sits on spending Danny was doing anyway and moves the Goal three weeks. The electronics Offer needs $400 he had not planned and moves it nothing, and it is scored on the same three numbers rather than hidden. Tasks: Compare Offers · Select the Offer.
Feature 3 · what the transaction list does not do yet
Deliberately not a transaction list, because they have one. Available is split from earned but not yet posted, the missing points carry an expected date they have passed, and the raised issue is a tracked entry rather than a support ticket somewhere else. Tasks: Check Reward Status · Check when the reward will be available · Check whether my Transaction was recognized · Identify the Reward Issue · Check Resolution Status.
Feature 2 and the open question
Scenario 4 has the points requirement rising mid-journey and Danny moving his target rather than spending more. The open question for the team is how much forward certainty the product can give when a Goal reserves nothing.