The design and delivery of a scalable loyalty platform improving low customer turnout by increasing engagement and establishing long-term community tracking for a major cultural institution. Our team solved a 3,000-RSVP–to-600-attendee gap by transforming free arts events into high-value experiences.
View PrototypeMiami-Dade County community (families, young adults, performing arts patrons)
14 Weeks (September - December 2023)
Lead Product Designer (me), 3 Product Designers, 2 UX Researchers, 2 Developers, 1 Project Manager
Design strategy, cross-functional team facilitation, design iterations, mobile design flow, platform design, development
The Adrienne Arsht center is a premier venue shaping the performing arts scene in the heart of South Florida. Their Community Outreach and Engagement team provides educational opportunities and community events that enrich the lives of over 100,000 people. Despite strong interest in free performances and community programming, the team faced a persistent gap between RSVPs and actual attendance. In some cases, over 3,000 people would RSVP for a free event, while only a fraction ultimately attended. At the same time, the organization sought better ways to understand and sustain long-term engagement particularly with students and community members.
How might we leverage the strengths of the Adrienne Arsht Center to effectively communicate the value of free events, build excitement, and incentivize engagement before, during, and after events?
Solution
My role beyond individual contribution
As the lead product designer on this project, I was responsible for both design quality and team execution. Throughout the project I communicated progress, tradeoffs, and rationale to key stakeholders. A few of my direct responsibilities included:
Website improvement is recommended to improve user experience within the site and improve awareness of the free events.
Key enhancements focused on:
A Loyalty Program - The Arsht rewards web experience is designed to promote connectivity and excitement for members to look forward to attend events hosted by the Arsht Center
Understanding the Arsht Center’s current website and backend systems functionality in practice helped determine where existing workflows could be extended. Arsht Rewards was designed to measurably influence attendance behavior, engagement, and long-term retention.
Platform Goals
How points are earned
Points and rewards are designed to holistically incentivize engagement. During stakeholder conversations, the community team highlighted a key desire to continuously increase free event attendance & awareness through grassroots marketing efforts.
Leaning on loyalty program principles, interest is maintained during and after the event through point redemption and user journey. This foundation for data-informed decision-making around free events, incentives, and programming strategy set the tone for the Arsht Rewards design moving forward.
Design evolved through iterative exploration and feasibility validation. The initial preliminary design focused on establishing the core experience and navigation. Mid-fidelity wireframes were pitched to stakeholders to validate structure, hierarchy, and interaction patterns before investing in visual refinement.
Following concept validation, the interface was refined to align with the Arsht Center’s visual identity while maintaining clarity and accessibility. The initial childlike visual style did not match the vision of the client. A lightweight style guide was established to ensure consistency across components and future scalability.
User Flows
The journey ensures users can navigate to Arsht rewards from multiple different touch points. A user’s ability to join from the main Arsht center site, post event RSVP or attendance is intentionally easy as each flow was designed to keep interactions simple. Users create an account, attend events, earn points, and redeem rewards seamlessly.
Mobile Design
As out team refined the journey, we noticed a gap in the design for the event day flow. A mobile design was missing and would be needed for the project handoff. Since Arsht rewards was designed as a desktop/tablet first experience, it assumed that users would only utilize it before and after the event. To the mobile design had to accommodate low refresh rates and a clearly defined ticket scan flow for real-time point accrual.
Development
To support scalability and operational efficiency, the product was designed around a CMS-driven architecture that leverages the Arsht Center’s existing CRM ticketing platform. A template was created to feed off existing CMS data so the website manager only inputs text and photos. This integration-first approach ensured the solution remained realistic, maintainable, and aligned with existing systems.
CRM Platform Integration consideration included:
Arsht Rewards concluded with a developer-ready, scalable loyalty platform designed to influence attendance behavior, increase repeat engagement, and give the Arsht Center visibility into long-term community participation. The final solution delivers a cohesive, developer-ready loyalty platform that balances user motivation, brand alignment, and technical feasibility. Direct Arsht Center benefits include:
The desktop design direction and mobile design shift required several technical assumptions, including the availability of ticket scanners at free events and the ability to track real-time attendance. Along the way the following key design decisions significantly impacted the final product.
Tradeoffs Considered
The client appreciated our concept but told us that a web solution may not be the best option as over 80% of their community members buy tickets on their mobile phone. Without the direct input of the client’s marketing and internal development teams we had to make several assumptions regarding technical aspects. Along the way, I learned that despite consistent communication with one team, a product can only be shipped successfully with the input of secondary team input. As a design team, we had to:
If there was more time...
Games in the app would offer a unique backstage access perk. This experience enhances attendees' sense of VIP treatment. To further deepen engagement, future iterations could introduce playful mechanics:
Community feature so attendees can connect and discuss events on a board. Creating a space for passionate event goers to share excitement and tips would foster long-term relationships and shared identity through:
This project reinforced how product design extends beyond interfaces into systems, incentives, and organizational alignment. Designing Arsht Rewards required balancing user motivation, technical feasibility, and business goals within real-world constraints. As Lead Product Designer, my focus was not only on the end experience, I learned:
Product Design Learnings
This project directly impacted how I view scalable system design today. Supporting longitudinal user tracking across systems can be difficult to implement but it has a huge impact on growth is done well. I also learned that in product design, business impact is just as important in shaping design strategy.
