design exercise
Designing loyalty for owners with zero time.
The brief
A take-home exercise for a Product Designer selection. Design "Fidelity": a new section of an existing SaaS dashboard that lets independent restaurant owners build and run loyalty programs for their customers. No specs, no internal benchmarks. Just the product context and a reasoning process from scratch.
The product
A SaaS suite for independent restaurants, already covering social, advertising, CRM, menu, website, newsletters and reservations. Its users are owners and managers, often not tech-savvy, looking for simple tools to grow. Fidelity is the missing piece.
My approach
The brief was deliberately open, so the first real job was framing the problem before designing anything. With three and a half days for the whole exercise, working in the order the brief asked for, research first and visual artifacts last, was also a way to spend the time where it mattered most. Reasoning over pixels.
Deliverables
Value Proposition Canvas for two profiles, a pain/win synthesis, four solution cards designed as one system, the full UX flow for the chosen feature, and low-fidelity wireframes of its key screens.
The brief made the priority explicit: reasoning first, artifacts second. So the process moves from understanding two very different users, to choosing which pains to attack, to designing a system rather than a pile of features.
01 - research
Two sides of the same table
Value Proposition Canvas
Owner + diner
Jobs · Pains · Gains
02 - pain & win
Three pains, chosen from different angles
Identity
Time
Knowledge
03 - system
A system, not a menu of features
Solution cards
System thinking
How might we
04 - flow & wireframes
The VIP Circle, end to end
User flow
Block diagram
Wireframes
Pain 1 • Identity
Today
The owner avoids "doing marketing" because discounts feel like they cheapen the place. Result: no communication, and the customer forgets.
Win point
A section that lets you reward instead of promote. Experiences, recognition, exclusive access, not generic discounts. A tone built on care, not on sales.
Pain 2 • Time
Today
Between service, suppliers, staff and shifts, anything non-urgent gets postponed. Loyalty matters but is never the priority, so it never happens.
Win point
A section usable at a glance, with pre-configured programs activating in a few clicks and automations running in the background. Value appears without requiring learning.
Pain 3 • Knowledge
Today
Finds out a customer is gone only when they stop coming. No visibility into the health of the relationship with the customer base.
Win point
A customer view segmented automatically (regulars, occasional, at-risk, new) from data already in the platform. The owner sees the situation and acts before it's too late.
01 • Customer View
How might we help the owner understand who their customers are, without asking them to analyze data?
Solves
Pain 3 (knowledge) and Pain 2 (zero configuration).
02 • Loyalty Programs
How might we let an owner launch a loyalty program in five minutes, without having to understand what a loyalty program is?
Solves
Pain 2 (time) and Pain 1 (curated, non-promotional templates).
03 • VIP Circle
How might we let the owner cultivate their most loyal customers with exclusive experiences, instead of discounts?
Solves
Pain 1 (reward over discount) and Pain 3 (targeted action on top customers).
04 • Impact
Answer "is it working?" without reading a report
How might we show the owner whether their time invested in loyalty is paying off, without making them read a report?
Solves
Cross-cutting: justifies the time invested (Pain 2), gives substance to actions (Pain 1 and 3).
01 • Entering Fidelity
The section opens with a one-line onboarding, the Customer View already populated with segments, and the program library below. No full-screen welcome, no guided tour: he sees his real data immediately. Value is shown, not promised.
02 • Choosing the program
He clicks the "VIP Circle" card. A preview explains it in a few lines, shows the email customers will get, and notes that N candidates were already identified (e.g. 12 from the VIP segment). Two CTAs: Personalize, or Activate with suggested candidates. Showing the count up front lowers anxiety and builds anticipation.
03 • Reviewing candidates
The candidate list opens: name, visits in the last 12 months, last visit. He can deselect anyone who doesn't fit and add suggestions from nearby segments. This isn't about data, it's about the sense of control. The owner knows his customers better than the algorithm; without this step, he wouldn't trust the system.
04 • Personalizing the invitation
The invite template is already written, curated and non-promotional. He can edit it or leave it, with a live preview of how it looks to the customer. Smart default, optional edit, never a blank page.
05 • Configuring benefits
He picks what to offer from pre-configured checkboxes (ad-hoc evenings, menu previews, reserved table, birthday gift), plus a free-text custom option. He doesn't have to invent the program; he picks from a set that's part of the Circle's DNA.
06 • Confirm and activate
A summary screen, then one CTA: Activate the VIP Circle. The point of no return is clear and isolated. No upsell, no extra questions. He should feel he completed something.
07 • Post-activation
Back to the Fidelity home. The Circle shows as active with a small widget: member count, invites accepted in real time, next suggested action. The flow ends not with "you did it" but with "here's what you can do next".
What I'd validate before building
Validate the "reward over discount" bet
The identity pain is my central assumption. I'd run quick interviews with owners to confirm experiences motivate more than discount mechanics, rather than assuming it.
Pressure-test "zero config" on messy data
Automatic segmentation is elegant on clean data. I'd check what the Customer View looks like for a restaurant with sparse or inconsistent history, where segments could mislead.
Bring the diner back into the loop
The exercise let me lean toward the owner. The next iteration would design the diner's side of the VIP invitation with the same care, since the program's success depends on their response.