Challenge
Kohl’s wanted stronger loyalty engagement, but overlapping programs and complex rules made rewards hard to understand. Before customers could be motivated to participate, the experience first needed more clarity.
Reimagining the
in-app loyalty
experience
Creating a future-state vision for how Kohl’s could make its loyalty program easier to understand, more useful while shopping, and more relevant over time. I partnered with strategy to turn a broad loyalty brief into a prioritized roadmap and concept direction.
My Contribution
As lead designer, I identified the confusion between Kohl’s loyalty programs as the core experience problem and translated it into a future-state direction across onboarding, rewards visibility, personalization, and alerts.
Impact
The work turned a broad loyalty ambition into a prioritized roadmap and tangible concept direction for the next design phase. It also helped prove the value of the partnership and contributed to a six-month embedded design engagement.
Loyalty Complexity
Engagement wasn’t
the first problem. Understanding was.
The loyalty experience contained real value, but customers had to work too hard to understand what they had earned, when they could use it, and how the different programs fit together. That reframed the opportunity: clarify the program first, then create better reasons to engage with it.
Program Comparison
Separate what’s competing for attention
Kohl’s Cash, Kohl’s Rewards, and Kohl’s Card were often presented in ways that made them feel interchangeable, even though they served different purposes. A clearer comparison separated the systems, explained their distinct benefits, and reduced confusion at key decision points.
Onboarding
Explain the value before asking customers to engage
A new onboarding direction introduced the app and loyalty program in simpler steps helping customers understand what the app could do, how Kohl’s Rewards and Kohl’s Card differed, and where each could add value.
My Kohl’s Dashboard
Make rewards
work harder
A dedicated Rewards dashboard what customers needed most: available Kohl’s Cash, expiration, progress toward the next reward, and clear ways to earn or redeem. If a customer had $120 in Kohl’s Cash, the experience could surface products within that value and calculate what they needed to spend to reach the next reward.
Notifications & Alerts
Give customers a reason to return
Alerts brought useful moments forward, from newly earned rewards and upcoming expiration dates to relevant offers and earning opportunities. Personalization made those interactions more useful over time.
Make the value easier to see and use
Across the experience, the goal was consistent: surface what matters, do the math for the customer, and make the next action clear.
