THE CHALLENGE WAS TO DECREASE REDEMPTION RATES WHILE INCREASING PLAYER ENGAGEMENT

While I had access to the CEO and co-founder, for this project I was the sole contributor. First I set out to understand our users. Leveraging Nielsen Sports data the following personas were identified.

The Social Fan (Community Craver) was identified as our target user because of the strong overlap with the NeXT value proposition. These fans typically crave competition, love sports, and value loyalty rewards. Additionally, another user persona self identified through feedback as "The Better Half" who largely fall into the Community Craver group. These individuals are typically the wife or girlfriend who watches sports to spend more time with their partner, and who are looking for ways to make the experience more fun.

The Game Loop

The Project Plan

Over a month period I executed a 4 step plan that loosely translated to a week each.

Discovery Findings

In the discovery phase I started using and playing the game heavily to start developing hypothesis. I also involved family members to observe their interactions with the game. External to the family I approached 4 individuals in my community who were consistent with the target persona. One of the participants had already been exposed to the app as a recommendation from a colleague. Through interviews and observation, a number of problems were identified.

Existing application

Identified challenges

Mapping the Application

This high-level player journey diagram maps the core user flows within the NeXT application, showing how user actions (white boxes), app screens (red boxes), and resulting events (purple boxes) interconnect to create a comprehensive engagement ecosystem.

Conceptualizing Ideas

Trying to focus on divergent thinking, I sketched out several ideas that described my thinking and user value to be able to easily communicate back to stakeholders.

Conceptual sketches exploring various user engagement strategies

Prototyping for Testing

To validate the design concepts and test user flows, I built an interactive prototype in Figma that captured the core functionality and user experience.

Usability testing was conducted with 6 users, 2 of which matched the target persona profile.

How would you go about following a game?

How would you go about changing your jersey?

You have enough points to purchase a $5 gift card at the Home Depot, how would you purchase it?

Can you tell me what the score of the Jays game is that's currently on?

All users could complete tasks without any major prompts, however exploration of the app was needed to set context for shopping, changing their jersey, and checking the score. Once found, it became clear for users.

The area that required the most tuning was the follow tile were information proved difficult to organize in a clean format. Ultimately legal rights are required before team logos can be displayed so a simplified design was chosen to start.

Introducing Shopping

The original concept offered only gift card redemptions. By expanding the shopping experience to include energy, tickets, jersey collections, and titles, we created a cost-effective strategy to reduce redemption rates while significantly increasing user engagement.

Strategizing NeXT Steps

Using the pirate metrics framework (AARRR!), we prioritize Acquisition, Activation, and Retention for core product improvements, with Revenue and Referrals following later.

Which approach creates the most satisfied and engaged users? The answer is clear. Our recommended strategy follows an inside-out approach: RAA—Retention first, then Activation, then Acquisition.

To implement this retention-first strategy, we developed a four-phase roadmap that addresses core user experience issues while building toward long-term engagement.

After completing the above 4 steps, the transition will be made to activation.