Rewards Program for Engagement that Drives Quality Content
Implemented a Reward Program to Increase Engagement and Unified the Information Architecture to Improve Consistency
OVERVIEW
Designed a locally based community app for immigrants in the US to find culturally relevant information and encourage creating and sharing high-quality content through a rewards program.
Responsibility
Research
IA
UX Design
Interaction Design
Sketch
Wireframing
Prototyping
UI Design
Tools
Figma
Google Suites





Company
OLIV






Timeline
April - July 2025






Worked with
COO
CEO





PROJECT GOAL
Increase user engagement by encouraging community members to actively share and contribute high-quality, meaningful content.
PROBLEMS
Although the platform has 2.3K registered users, only 8% (around 180 users) visit daily.
Engagement
Users post content but rarely engage further, leaving little reason to return.
Retention
No mechanisms in place to return to the app.
Contribution
Limited motivation to create high-quality content.
SOLUTION
Rewards Program
Points When & How
How do users keep track, point summary, history
Education
Leaderboard
Convert
Contributions earn points
Transparent system with clear point rules that show how each contribution is rewarded. These rules are defined as criteria to encourage users to create high-quality content.
Leaderboards Inspire Participation
By seeing how others accumulate rewards, users can check their own ranking on the leaderboard and stay engaged.
Real Value in the Marketplace
Track their own accumulated points in history and redeem them as OLIV Money that can be used in the marketplace, turning contributions into tangible value.
Here's the reasoning behind these solutions 🖱️
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
Most major competitors follow a pattern that ultimately leads to monetization.
Why I chose the point system is here. As a long-term strategy to foster deeper engagement, a point-based reward system is appropriate when user contributions are converted into real value, aligning with our design principles.
Competitor Analysis
Importance of a transparent payout system with clear guidelines for meaningful participation, grounded in cultural sensitivity and built on trust and authenticity.
Competitors
Shared Values
Reward System
Design Approach
Simplicity
Demonstrates a transparent point-based reward system, making rewards intuitive and easy to understand, and providing users with a clear experience when their contributions pay out.
→ Point System
Retention by value, Meaningful engagement
Contributions are recognized as members’ specialties, encouraging high-quality posts by awarding badges and icons, while a give-and-take system similar to upvotes and downvotes (karma) highlights community impact and connects contributions to tangible rewards.
→ Admin, Criteria of point rule
Meaningful engagement
nudges members with specific actions to earn points, framing each step as meaningful progress toward personal goals, and offers personalized redemption options that align rewards with individual aspirations.
→ Education
Meaningful engagement
Encourage self-awareness by showing members how others engage with their contributions, using this Contribution quantification to nudge positive behavior change and foster more meaningful participation.
→ History
Cultural sensitivity, Retention by value
Adapts Beli’s leaderboard approach to represent member contributions, making participation visible and motivating sustained engagement.
→ Leaderboard
Trust & Authenticity
structures its point system around specific actions that clearly show how contributions pay out, adapting Blind’s model of tying rewards to transparent in-app currency use.
→ Criteria of the point rule
Interaction Design
Where and how to display rewards status in the Interface.
Considering ingress points, I reorganized the profile view and payout flows holistically so that users encounter point rewards at the right moments in their journey. Leaderboards and rule education were seamlessly integrated to ensure smooth interactions.
UI Redesign and Restructured Information Architecture
PROJECT GOAL
Design content in a more dynamic and refreshing format, making it easier for users to find diverse information in one place.
PROBLEMS
Static content in the default view gives user fatigue and a lack of consistent navigation for diverse information.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Defined clear navigation and content structures by removing redundancy and creating a more intuitive browsing experience, enabling new users to easily explore the community.
Oliv Halal Bites & Bazaar Community
Designing for end consumers who moved to the US and struggle to find culturally relevant information, I helped solve product challenges and user pain points unique to local community mobile app including:
• Need of IA reconcilation
• User fatigues from stucked content at default view
As a single designer, I redesigned OLIV mobile app refresh and new features to boost engagement including:
• IA
• Map & list interaction
• Navigation pages & filters
The goal was to design fresh, community-related local content in a more dynamic and refreshing format, to help users easily find what they're looking for in one place.
I closely collaborated with 2 CEOs who are a design director and a founding engineer. Currently the company is implementing my designs.
Home
Before
After
Optimized for users to catch up on what's happening in the community and focus on browsing by removing the redundancy in IA.

When they have a specific intent, they can easily navigate to other pages via the navigation bar.
FINAL DESIGN
Enhancing Exploration with Map-Centered Interaction, Consistent Navigation, and Adaptable Filters
Places
Before
After
_
Before
After
_
Before
After
_
Solution
The map was set as the default view to optimize the delivery of locality-related information, prevent repetition, and keep the experience fresh.

Icons can spark curiosity by showing what’s around the user, and also help them plan their path, for example, they might think, 'I’ll grab a meal here, get coffee there, and then head over to pray.

The card type acts as a bridge between the map and the list, making nearby detailed information easier for users to see.
Page Navigation & Filter
Before
After
Solution
The sorting mechanism I aimed to carry through was a holistic design decision: applying top-level page navigation consistently across all main pages to ensure a unified experience.

Given the culture and context, I established that filter options should reflect selections.
Shop
Before
After
Solution
Anticipating a growing number of items in the shop, I focused on enhancing browsability, where filters and page navigation played a critical role.
What I learned
Made high-level design decisions and executed holistic experiences beyond individual screens.
Through reconciling the IA, I realized the importance of making design decisions with future scalability and product expansion in mind. For high-level decisions accordingly, I considered consistency across the entire product beyond a single screen. For efficient design, I identified which parameters could be easily adjusted based on engineering constraints and resources. This experience helped me better understand where to innovate, how to benchmark relevant patterns, and what to prototype for validation.