THE PROBLEM

Bowlero locations faced challenges with underperforming sales, frequent absenteeism, and inadequate employee training, which affected overall business performance. The mandate: redesign the app to increase food and beverage sales, improve attendance, and enhance employee training—all within six months.

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UX RESEARCH

To gather valuable insights into the app's performance and identify the most important concepts for users, I conducted a comprehensive survey involving 151 Bowlero employees and facilitated 8 in-depth user interviews. The app’s primary KPIs focused on boosting sales, increasing attendance, and enhancing employee training through daily quizzes. The survey and interviews uncovered key challenges and opportunities that significantly influenced the app's future direction.

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FINDINGS

• Expand Challenges: 13% of users feel the app doesn’t suit their role. To engage more employees, add manager challenges, kitchen staff rewards, and center vs. center competitions.
• Shift Management: 10% of users want the ability to view and manage their schedules. Add a shift management feature for more convenience.
• Fix Bugs: To improve performance, address issues like quizzes not appearing, inaccurate sales data, frequent logouts, and app crashes.
• Boost Recognition: 60% of users are motivated by rewards. Introduce shout-outs, coin rewards, and badges to increase engagement and morale.‍
• Update Training: 45% of users want more comprehensive quizzes and training. Add new quizzes, training modules, and badges for completion.

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PERSONAS

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Creating personas post-launch helps refine our understanding of real users, guiding improvements and ensuring the app stays relevant and user-focused.

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By analyzing data from Google Analytics, conducting in-person interviews, and reviewing survey responses, I identified key behavioral patterns and preferences among Bowlero staff. This multi-faceted approach allowed me to create detailed personas that accurately reflect the diverse needs and motivations of the app's users, ensuring the redesign would effectively engage and reward employees across various roles.

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IDEATION

The team agreed that the Goldfish app should evolve into a comprehensive employee engagement platform that motivates all staff members, regardless of their role. We focused on the following core strategies to achieve this:

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CORE STRATEGIES

• Broaden Challenge & Reward Scope: Introduce challenges and rewards tailored to different roles, such as management and kitchen staff, to ensure everyone feels included and motivated.
• Improve Sales Data Accuracy: Work closely with the engineering team to enhance the accuracy of sales data displayed in the app.
• Diversify Quiz Content: Expand the range of quiz topics and difficulty levels to cater to all job roles, making daily engagement more meaningful.
• Push Notification Campaigns: Implement personalized push notifications to remind employees of upcoming challenges, rewards, and other key app features.

DESIGN + BUILD

The redesigned homepage was crafted to offer a tailored experience for each employee, displaying personalized stats, challenges, and rewards relevant to their specific roles. This approach ensured that every user was immediately presented with actionable insights that impacted their daily workflow and motivation.

To the left is the original design and to the right is the new updated design. For the homepage we added announcements, an new updated daily sales goal card, updated quizzes with a new vibrant and engaged look, and attendance challenges is now easier to see your progress

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DAILY SALES GOALS

‍The Daily Sales Goals card was designed to help sales associates track their progress throughout their shifts. The card features a dynamic progress bar that fills as users move closer to their sales targets. Hitting or exceeding these goals rewarded associates with coins, adding an element of gamification to the daily routine and driving performance through clear, visual feedback.

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ATTENDANCE CHALLENGES

‍To encourage punctuality, the Attendance Challenge cards incentivized employees to arrive on time for consecutive shifts. These cards tracked attendance in real-time, with each successful day marked on the card. Completing the challenge rewarded users with coins, reinforcing positive behavior and fostering a sense of accomplishment. If a user missed a shift the user would lose their streak and have to start over again.

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QUIZZES

The Goldfish app’s quizzes were initially limited to single-answer formats, which reduced user engagement. To enhance this, I redesigned the quiz interface and added a feature allowing multiple correct and incorrect answers, supported by a clear legend and detailed use cases for each screen variation. This addition required clear visual feedback, so I created a detailed legend and documented use cases for each version of the quiz screens.

This comprehensive approach improved usability and streamlined development, with the engineering team using the documentation directly for QA.

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CHALLENGES

The redesigned Challenges tab, shown on the right, presents a more modern and universally appealing look compared to the original design on the left. Key updates include clearer visual indicators for attendance challenges, making it easier for users to track progress at a glance. The streamlined interface emphasizes active challenges, enhancing user engagement by making tasks more accessible and visually appealing.

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REWARDS

In the redesign of the Rewards Store, we focused on improving the user experience by adding several key features. First, we implemented sticky filters that allow users to easily navigate through different reward categories, ensuring that they can quickly find the items they are most interested in. We also introduced a carousel feature to showcase featured items prominently, making it easier for users to discover popular or high-value rewards.

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RESULTS

Within a year, the Goldfish app evolved from a basic engagement tool to a comprehensive platform that fostered a culture of recognition, motivation, and inclusion across Bowlero locations. The app's user base grew significantly, and employee engagement metrics improved as a result of the new features and enhancements.

• User Engagement: Increased by 22% due to the introduction of role-specific challenges and rewards.
• Sales Data Accuracy: Improved accuracy led to a 15% increase in employees reaching their sales targets.
• App Adoption: The app saw a 30% increase in adoption among non-sales staff, particularly in the kitchen and management roles.
• Retention: Employee retention improved by 12% as the app became a central tool for recognition and rewards.

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