The Activate App
Overview
I had the opportunity to be Lead UX Designer for Bridg's Activate App—a new quick-service restaurant (QSR) app to be sold to clients like Texas Roadhouse, Firehouse Subs, and Church's Chicken.
I helped transform Bridg’s product vision into a fully functional product that lowered development costs, improved efficiency, and earned the company 3 new clients
What is Bridg?
Bridg is a restaurant and retail customer data platform and CRM, offering mobile-based loyalty clubs, mobile ordering, payment, gift cards, and satisfaction surveys.
How Bridg works: Through a monthly service fee, Bridg helps clients generate sales by utilizing their state-of-the-art Activate platform.
“Wesley’s passion for consumer-facing products, user experience and design, as well as his hard work ethic, made him a critical value add to our team as we evaluated how to enhance our product offering to existing and prospective clients.” Bianca Guidry, VP of Client Strategy & Operations at Bridg.
My Role:
Developed Project Vision: Worked with stakeholders and leadership to determine goals and objectives.
UX Research: Conducted competitive analysis and user interviews.
UX Design Managed a junior UX designer, creating over 50 high-fidelity mock-ups and an interactive prototype.
Collaboration: Developed and launched the app with Bridg’s cross-functional team.
The Problem
Existing clients have custom mobile apps, each with different back-end architectures. As a result, it is difficult to manage each client, particularly when technical issues arise.
Smaller quick-service restaurants and franchises were unable to afford the costs of custom QSR apps.
The Solution
The Activate App, a new, all-in-one platform, improves functionality, offers cutting edge features, and provides a modern user interface.
Project Timeline: 4 months
My Design Process
Step 1: EXPLORATION — 1 MONTH
Reviewed Customer Support Tickets: I reviewed hundreds of Bridg's customer support tickets, noting common user pain points, user frustrations, and feature requests. This research compendium helped me ensure that the Activate App could compete against industry leaders such as McDonald’s and Burger King.
Analyzed App Store & Google Play Reviews: I utilized App Bot, an AI-powered customer analysis tool, to analyze each of Bridg's client’s app reviews and user sentiments. To summarize findings, I created an Internal Audit document to rank top positive and negative user sentiments. This information helped me and project stakeholders understand Bridg’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
Conducted Competitive Analysis: I downloaded all of the mobile apps of Bridg's competitors, analyzing their app reviews, feature offerings, and user interfaces. I also ordered lunch from a new competitor app every day, noting what I liked and disliked about the overall user experience—from the sign-up process to picking up my food at the restaurant.
My Findings:
Users were motivated to use QSR apps to order food ahead to save time and earn rewards with loyalty programs.
Offering users a free reward encouraged users to create accounts.
There are already many convenient options for people to place their food orders, including drive-thru lines, calling in advance, or walking into the restaurant. In order for QSR apps to create habit-forming behavior, the user experience has to be more convenient than current, available pick-up options.
The top frustrations amongst users were technical issues, which often prevented them from completing mobile orders.
Designated pick-up areas for mobile orders were preferred, allowing users to conveniently pick up their orders without having to wait in line or interact with staff.
Many users wanted Apple Pay as a payment option, a feature unavailable at the time.
Step 2: DEFINITION — 1 MONTH
From earning loyalty points to redeeming rewards, mobile ordering to mobile payment, the Activate App was a complex project that required a month of strategic planning with stakeholders. Undoubtedly, the mobile ordering flow was the most important feature of the Activate App because it was invariably tied to sales.
Designing the Mobile Ordering Flow
I first analyzed several of the top industry-leading mobile ordering flows to devise solutions and simplify the mobile ordering process.
To find the most viable option, I sketched a variety of potential design solutions and collaborated with project stakeholders.
Step 3: DETAILED DESIGN — 2 MONTHS
Bridg’s junior UX designer and I created over 50 high-fidelity mock-ups and presented them to the product team each week for feedback and iteration (see screenshots below).
Home Screen
To incentivize users to sign up for the program, I designed the home screen with the Rewards module displaying a large, enticing image of the free reward as the first thing the user sees when opening the app!
Messages
Messages is an effective way for brands to communicate with users regarding special promotions and limited time offers, so I made sure to include this feature in the Activate App!
Rewards
Brands are incentivized to offer a rewards program because they are tied to sales, and studies have shown that loyal users spend more than non-loyal users.
Activate App Demo
Using InVision, I created an interactive prototype and presented to company stakeholders.
DELIVER
The Activate App is currently being sold to new and existing clients!
