User Flows: Loyalty Program

Skills Applied

UX Design | Research | UXUAT | Dev Alignment

Softwares Used

Figma | UserTesting.com | FigJam | Jira

User Base

E-Commerce

Industry Experience

Fashion | Retail

Overview

Vans, A global brand, aimed to streamline their loyalty program (Vans Family) registration process across its EMEA and NORA regions. The goal was to ensure a consistent experience while adhering to regional legal constraints and platform capabilities. Personalization played a key role in optimizing the experience, ensuring that users received relevant, engaging interactions tailored to their behaviors and preferences.

For this project I designed user flows, wireframes and enrollment UI elements in the design systems. These user flows touched on various points in the customer journey including in-store scenarios.

According to the Nielsen Norman Group, a user flow is defined as:

“A set of interactions that describe the typical or ideal set of steps needed to accomplish a common task performed with a product.”

My Role
  • Led the user flow design to align with business goals and user needs.
  • Collaborated with regional teams to adapt the experience for different legal and technical constraints.
  • Worked with developers and stakeholders to identify feasibility issues and ensure implementation.
  • Integrated personalization strategies to tailor the loyalty program experience based on user behaviors and engagement.
The Challenge

📌 Problem: Significant drop off identified during enrollment.

📌 Objective: Create a unified registration journey for loyalty program users across EMEA and NORA.

📌 Obstacle: The EMEA platform did not support the intended flow due to legal restrictions on collecting personal data—especially for minors.

📌 Personalization Considerations: Ensure tailored experiences without violating data privacy laws in different regions.

Process: Fixing Enrollment Drop-Off

The existing loyalty program suffered from high abandonment during signup, inconsistent flows across regions, and unclear rewards. To solve this, I led a 3-phase UX process:

  1. Understanding Business Goals
    • Ensured the user flow aligned with the brand’s goal of increasing loyalty program participation.
    • Prioritized ease of use, data security, and compliance.
  2. User Flow Development
    • Diagnosed the Leaks. Simplified & standardized the user flow.
    • Created a detailed registration flow covering different user scenarios.
    • Designed decision points to account for edge cases (e.g., different legal requirements per region).
    • Incorporated personalization elements, such as pre-filled fields for returning users and tailored reward suggestions based on behavior.
    • Tested the new flow with 12 users across key regions—prototype validation showed an increased enrollment completion rate, with the record-breaking 88K sign-ups seen post-launch (2024W34). This mirrored real-world results: sustained +127% YoY growth in subsequent weeks. Feedback highlighted the streamlined steps and clearer rewards visibility as drivers of success.
  3. Stakeholder Alignment & Developer Collaboration
    • During alignment meetings, discovered that EMEA’s platform did not support the designed flow.
    • Investigated the root cause and found that legal restrictions prevented asking for too much personal information, especially from minors.
    • Worked with teams to explore alternative solutions that balanced user experience and compliance.
Solution & Adaptation

NORA Region: The full user flow was implemented as designed, including behavior-driven personalization features such as tailored promotions based on past purchases.

It was tested on 5 Vans Family members, uncovering key pain points like reward complexity. Further testing was conducted using prototypes and showed a 40% faster task completion rate.

Lo-Fi Wire

Hi-Fi Wires & Flow

EMEA Region: Adjusted the experience by:

  • Reducing the number of required data fields to meet compliance.
  • Introducing age-gating measures to prevent minor data collection.
  • Creating a separate, region-specific flow while keeping the core experience similar.
  • Limiting personalization to non-sensitive data, such as engagement-based rewards.
Outcome & Impact
📊 NORA Region:

We saw a significant positive impact on user engagement and conversion:

  • 🧭 Streamlined Experience: By reducing friction in the digital sign-up process, users were able to enroll faster and more intuitively—leading to a more seamless journey.

 

  • 📈 Record-breaking Engagement: The changes directly contributed to a massive spike in enrollments, with 88K sign-ups in a single week (2024W34)—the highest in FY24 and one of the top two peaks in two years.

 

  • 🚀 Sustained Growth: Even after the peak, enrollments remained elevated (e.g., +127% YoY in Week 35), indicating that the new experience continued to drive strong results beyond the initial rollout.

 

  • 💡 Stronger Conversion Funnel: The enrollment curve suggests the simplified updates helped users move through the funnel more efficiently, capturing value that may have previously been lost in a more complex flow.

The solid orange line (current year) shows a sharp spike at Week 34, reaching 88K enrollments with enrollment volumes remaining significantly above the prior year even in Week 35, indicating sustained momentum. The dashed yellow line (prior year) reflects a relatively flat trend in contrast, highlighting the effectiveness of the new experience.

📊 EMEA Region:
  • Legal and technical constraints were successfully addressed without compromising brand consistency.
  • Ensured compliance while offering a seamless alternative flow.
  • Privacy-focused personalization enabled engagement without collecting excessive user data.

Key Takeaways

Global UX Strategy Requires Flexibility

A unified approach must consider regional legal and technical limitations.

Early Collaboration with Developers is Crucial

Discovering platform limitations late in the process can lead to rework and delays.

Legal Compliance Shapes UX Decisions

Privacy laws directly impact the user data collection process, requiring smart design adjustments.

Personalization Drives Engagement

Customizing experiences—even within compliance constraints—helps increase user interaction and retention.