Dana SmithamAllergan · Brilliant Distinctions
Brilliant Distinctions rewards
Bringing men into a loyalty program built around women, inside strict pharmaceutical regulation.
- Client
- Allergan
- My role
- Lead UX designer and creative director
- Constraint
- FDA review of every component
- Outcome
- 40% offer redemption
The challenge
Brilliant Distinctions is Allergan’s loyalty program for its prescription beauty line. Members earn points on products and treatments. The program had strong, loyal relationships with women, and much weaker ones with men.
I was brought in to lead UX and creative direction for a version aimed at men. I inherited it behind schedule and over budget.
My role
I led the design team, ran user interviews, built personas, and created interactive prototypes that helped speed up approvals.
How we approached it
Understand what motivates him.
We started by looking closely at male customers and what drives their buying habits. That led to a men’s landing page and an email campaign that asked registered women members to invite the man in their life, with a real incentive for both.
Keep the shell familiar.
We reviewed the existing pages with the client and agreed to keep shared components like navigation and sign-in the same, so nobody had to relearn the basics.
Iterate fast with the client.
We set weekly check-ins and ran the design team in sprints. Each wireframe round covered four or five pages, built into basic Axure prototypes to walk the client through. Features came and went with requirements. We went through 15 rounds.
Document everything for the FDA.
Regulation meant page-by-page annotations of every action a person could take, each with a functionality write-up, for FDA review. It was a grind, and we still hit the deadline and came in on budget.
What it led to
We took a late, over-budget project and delivered it on time and on budget.
Earlier work. Results come from the original project.
Your next challenge.
Our next conversation.
Let’s talk about your team and what comes next.
Client
Allergan
My Role
UX Design
Creative Director
The Project
Brilliant Distinctions is a loyalty program for the pharmaceutical company Allergan. Members earn points by purchasing products or treatments from Allergan’s prescription beauty line. Brilliant Distinctions has enjoyed active, loyal relationships with its female customers, but not as much as their male counterparts. I was approached to lead the UX and creative direct the male version of the rewards program. After the redesign, the loyalty program went on to be the leading cosmetic rewards program in the world!
The Approach
I was the lead UX designer and creative director on this project. My team and I first took a closer look at the male consumer/customer, and what influences and motivates his shopping habits. Based on our findings, we developed a male landing page experience & email campaign utilizing registered female brand loyalists, prompting them to encourage the man in their life to sign up—with a deep incentive for both parties. This project was very challenging due to working with government pharmaceutical regulations and sign-off. I actually inherited this project when it was behind schedule and off-budget, I lead my team in turning the project around.
We first looked at the female page designs and talked to the client about what they wanted to see on the male pages. We came to the conclusion after discussing the options that keeping the same shell components (i.e. navigation, sign-in process) the same would mitigate user frustrations. On the left, you will see the female page design and on the right is the initial round of wireframing based on early conversations with the client.
Wireframe Rounds
In the wireframing rounds, we would produce 4-5 pages in the wires to show feature placement and content hierarchy. We would then populate these designs in Axure for basic prototypes to walk the client through. These rounds of wires saw a lot of feature sets come and go based on requirements from the client. There were 15 rounds of wires that were produced.
We set up ongoing weekly check-ins with the client and implemented a scrum/sprint mentality on the design team. I lead the design efforts on the UX side by conducting user interviews, persona development, and interactive prototypes that helped speed up the approval process. In the end, we needed to hand off design/interactive annotations of every single component on the site for FDA approval. This was a very arduous process but in the end, we were able to meet the project deadline and come in on the budget.
Annotations and Design Specs
Based on government regulations we had to produce page-by-page annotations to hand off to the FDA for review. These annotations had to be very detailed and show every action that could be taken on the website along with a functionality write-up.
Final Design
The Results
Brilliant Distinctions went on to become the leading cosmetic Rewards program in the world after the redesign!
40% offer redemption
15% of men went on to schedule a cosmetic treatment