Role: Product Designer
Team: 2 Designers, 2 PM, Stakeholders
Focus: B2C Participant Engagement | Incentives | Workflow Optimisation
Key Themes: Collaboration, Ideation, Workshop Facilitation, Data-Driven Design
***Please enquire for designs***
🧠 The Challenge
Our team was falling short on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for a high-priority client. Specifically, we were not completing research studies quickly enough due to low participant engagement in “priority studies” a segment of research projects deemed urgent by the client.
The problem was clear: participants weren’t motivated to choose these studies over others. If we didn’t resolve this quickly, we risked damaging both the client relationship and broader delivery metrics.
🧩 My Role
I led the design strategy for addressing this challenge alongside another designer. My role spanned end-to-end from identifying engagement barriers, running collaborative ideation workshops, and designing a new incentive experience, to working cross-functionally to align the solution with business and operational needs.
💡 Discovery & Ideation
We kicked off with joint ideation sessions, mapping out the current participant journey and identifying friction points. Through a Crazy Eights workshop with the broader team, we generated a wide range of ideas from visual nudges and tagging systems to more ambitious gamified solutions like badges and streaks.
One promising idea we explored heavily was gamification: we investigated how techniques like progress tracking, XP points, and challenges could be used to drive engagement. While this path showed strong potential, we ultimately decided to deprioritise it due to concerns around feasibility and user clarity in the current system.
🚀 The Solution: Surge Rewards
Instead, we introduced a more direct and measurable mechanism: Surge Rewards.
This feature increased participant compensation for completing specific “priority studies,” clearly flagged in the UI. The design goal was to:
Surface urgency without overwhelming users
Create a sense of opportunity and reward
Guide user decision-making subtly, not coercively
I designed clear, modular UI components to highlight these boosted rewards, ensuring they fit seamlessly within the existing study cards and notifications. We prioritised clarity and simplicity to avoid confusing or misleading participants.
📊 Outcomes & Impact
While still in rollout during this writing, early feedback has been promising.
✍️ Reflection
This project underscored the value of balancing creativity with execution. While I was excited about pushing forward more experimental gamification mechanics, I also recognised the importance of a clear, low-friction MVP that would move the needle fast.
🛠️ Key Skills Demonstrated
Workshop Facilitation: Ran Crazy Eights and structured ideation with cross-functional teams
Cross-functional Collaboration: Worked closely with designers, PMs, and research ops
Strategic Thinking: Balanced user needs, business constraints, and long-term vision
Data-Driven Design: Grounded decisions in clear outcome metrics and behavioural analysis
B2C Engagement Design: Created systems to influence participant behaviour at scale
