Realigning a Rewards Platform to Improve Usability and Product Effectiveness
Leading the redesign of State Farm’s Community Offers experience to address low engagement, unclear value, and misaligned product direction
Project Overview
State Farm’s Community Offers platform was designed to connect customers with curated discounts and rewards. Despite significant investment, the experience struggled with low engagement, unclear value, and usability challenges.
As UX Lead, I was brought in to diagnose the underlying issues and lead a redesign effort to simplify the experience, clarify the value proposition, and create a more scalable foundation for growth.
My Contributions
As UX Lead, I drove the redesign effort across web and mobile app experiences.
My responsibilities included:
- Leading UX strategy and experience direction
- Identifying root usability and adoption issues
- Aligning cross-functional stakeholders
- Challenging existing assumptions and product direction
- Translating insights into scalable design solutions
I worked at the intersection of user needs, business goals, and product strategy.
Client:
StateFarm
Engagement Type:
End-to-end redesign strategy and execution
Role:
UX Lead/Senior UX Architect
Collaboration:
UX, Product, Engineering
Platform:
Desktop/mobile responsive, mobile app
The Challenge
The platform faced several critical issues limiting its effectiveness:
- Low user adoption and engagement
- Overly complex and difficult-to-navigate experience
- Unclear value proposition for both customers and merchants
- Fragmented experience across touchpoints
- Early AI-driven features that introduced confusion rather than value
From a business perspective, this resulted in:
- Underutilized product investment
- Missed opportunities for customer engagement
- Limited scalability of the platform
This was not simply a usability issue—it was a product direction problem.
Approach
Discovery and Diagnosis
I led a focused discovery effort to understand where the experience was breaking down.
This included:
- Heuristic evaluation
- Stakeholder interviews
- Analysis of user behavior and friction points
Key Insights
The platform was not failing due to lack of features—it was failing due to lack of clarity and usability.
Users struggled to:
- Understand the value of the platform
- Navigate and discover offers efficiently
- Complete key actions without friction
Additionally, early AI-driven features added complexity without improving the experience, increasing cognitive load and user confusion.
Strategic Direction
Based on these findings, I helped redefine the product direction around three core principles:
Clarity Over Complexity
Simplify the experience and reduce unnecessary elements
Guided Experiences Over Open Exploration
Help users move toward meaningful actions with clearer pathways
Value-First Design
Surface relevant offers and benefits early to reinforce usefulness
This represented a shift from a feature-heavy experience to a user-centered, goal-driven product.
Solution
I led the redesign of key user flows and interaction patterns to address core friction points.
Key Improvements
- Simplified navigation and improved wayfinding
- Reduced cognitive load across the experience
- Clearer pathways to key user actions
- Improved offer discovery and filtering
- Stronger visual hierarchy
- Streamlined user flows with fewer steps
- Refined information architecture aligned with user intent
Outcome
While specific production metrics were limited, the redesign delivered meaningful strategic impact:
- Improved usability and task success in testing
- Clearer value perception for both users and merchants
- Stronger alignment across stakeholders
- A more scalable UX foundation for future enhancements
Most importantly:
The platform shifted from a confusing, feature-heavy experience to a focused, user-centered product with a clear direction.
Before and After
Before
- Complex, difficult-to-navigate experience
- Unclear value proposition
- Feature-heavy but not user-friendly
- Misaligned product direction
After
- Simplified, intuitive user flows
- Clearer presentation of value
- Improved usability and engagement potential
- Aligned vision across teams
What This Project Demonstrates
This work reflects my ability to:
- Identify when product direction is misaligned
- Translate research into strategic product decisions
- Challenge assumptions and guide course correction
- Align cross-functional teams around a clear vision
- Design scalable, user-centered solutions
Key Takeaway
More features do not create better products—clarity and usability do.
By simplifying the experience and focusing on user needs, the platform was repositioned for stronger engagement and long-term success.