TheDynamiClint

This research and design went toward implementing and improving a Kama’aina gas station rewards app. Traditional gas rewards programs are difficult by design and result in desperation because the number of points required to gain meaningful rewards is so large it seems like customers will never attain them. Arguably, most do not.

Of course, any company is going to want to retain customers, improve return on investment, and make sure that if an app is put out that customers are going to be using that app often.

Thinking of ways to approach this goal ethically, in ways that benefit customers, a decision was made to put a different spin on it and draw users in by providing a sense of community, allowing them to do good things and get rewarded.

Namely recycling to help the environment and checking in-app information to see how much caffeine and sugar users put into their bodies on a day-to-day basis. This is a less nefarious alternative to offering dangling carrots in the form of points solely based on purchases and unreachable reward milestones.

Research and Assumptions Summary

A major assumption entering this study was that most people on Big Island have a smartphone, which was crucial for the types of transactions that the app would need to do.

Other assumptions:

• People prefer a mobile app to rewards cards.
• People care about their environment, self-care, and each other.
• Features that inform decisions, improve the environment, and allow for altruistic interactions will be well received.

Opportunity Statement: Improve the Kama’aina Rewards app to reflect a desire for a sense of community and wellbeing in customers.

Users and Audience: People who live on Hawai’i island, visit convenience stores/gas stations to make purchases other than petroleum products, have a smartphone, and use, or would be interested in using a gas station rewards app.

Process: Online research of Hawai’i island petroleum distributors and convenience stores, national convenience store consumer behavior, and a screener/information gathering survey placed on Reddit channels related to Hawaii (r/BigIsland, r/Hawaii, r/UniversityofHawaii, etc.) for more localized insight.

Ideation

During ideation, a collection of feature borrows from other apps were amassed, how might we statements were listed out, personas were created, and rough sketches of flows for each process were done to guide the design phase. See items in InVision.

Concept Prototypes

Early prototyping was done with dry-erase because it was easy to create, edit, and delete designs as new information came flowing in. At this phase, it was not wise to become too invested in any layout, process, or thinking around ways user flows might happen physically and within the app. See in InVision

Usability Prototype

Not attached to any design, but having a general concept, the focus shifted to usability prototyping. Sketch was used to create this prototype, incorporating elements from Apple iOS UI Kit, Elements UI Kit from material design, and Moon Wireframe Kit. This design is available to view in Sketch.

Stakeholder Prototype

For the stakeholder prototype, the same tools from the usability prototype were used, adding Photoshop and Unsplash for stock images. Background images were selected to give the feeling of nature and to make the app more appealing for users. This video walks through user flows, and the prototype is avalable to view in Sketch.

Next Steps

• More proof of concept research to ensure new features would bring a return on investment and be worth the production effort and cost.

• Planning for merging the new flows into current product features and existing data. Provisioning for new data that needs to be collected.

• Eventual rollout, with feedback and metrics gathering to follow to gauge users’ satisfaction with the app and its new features.