Role
UX/UI Designer
Scope
Product Design
Team
YouIX Education
Year
2024
Designing Apprize from scratch to increase employee engagement and make recognition easier, more accessible, and fun with a point-based reward system aligned to company budgets in IT Industry like intra-social networking. Allow managers to give non-monetary recognition. Recognition can be personal to the recipient.
Product goals
Make recognition easy and accessible
Enable employees to quickly send peer recognition with just a few clicks.
Incentivize meaningful appreciation
Allow users to attach points or gifts to their recognition to increase motivation.
Track engagement across teams
Provide visibility into how recognition is distributed to identify gaps and foster a more inclusive culture.
Which roles in the workplace benefit the most from this program?
The main users of Apprize are employees and managers in Tech SMEs. Unlike big corps with mature HR systems, SMEs often face challenges in resource management, employee engagement, and communication across teams. This makes them ideal users of Apprize, as the platform helps streamline processes and enhance collaboration in a growing but resource-limited environment.
The prolem
To make a peer-to-peer appreciation program really work, I’ve got to spot the common hiccups and smooth them out early.
Proximity bias
Where employees who work remotely or in a hybrid model are disadvantaged compared to employees who work full-time in an office.
Non-Motivating rewards
Employees find rewards irrelevant (e.g., limited redemption options, low-value gift cards) and crave personalized, meaningful incentives.
Ignoring other forms of recognition
While bonuses and points provide tangible rewards, peer recognition adds a personal touch that strengthens workplace connections.
Recognition is more than just a thank you for doing a good job
Before diving into understanding what users in the real world need, I started by conducting secondary market research with the following goals:
Understand the industry trends of P2P Recognition, market statistics
Understand the purpose of this program & its impact
Understand what benefits the business wants to achieve & what employees need
Identify types of recognition and rewards for employees
Learning about competitors and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses
This helped me define clear user personas and align product features to real workplace needs.
Competitor analyst & feature comparision
Discover the relative strengths and weaknesses of competing designs, take an in-depth look at how others solve the same design problems.
Learn from others. Gain insights based on the usability work of my competitors
Provide the best overall user experience
The similar features of my competitors seem interesting or appealing
What similar features on my platform do I want to compare to others
Proto-personas
To better understand potential users of this recognition platform, I created assumption-based personas based on secondary research, HR reports, and assumed needs of typical employees in a modern workplace.
Product features that focus on user needs
Identify important features that meet user needs, fit the product's main goal.
Product features planning was built base on collecting feedbacks from internal team, helping prioritize and improve features.
Capture key user steps and system responses with user flow
User flows include users and systems. I created the system column to learn to understand that every time a user interacts, what the system displays to them.
A clean and cheerful home for everything recognition-related
Easily view your given and received points, explore earned badges, and stay updated through a real-time recognition feed — all designed to foster appreciation at a glance.
Simple recognition, meaningful impact
Recognition made easy and heartfelt. Select a peer, choose a badge that fits, and send a bit of gratitude their way — it’s these small gestures that build a stronger team.
Got points? Time to trade ‘em for joy!
This screen is all about celebrating you. Browse through a curated list of fun and meaningful rewards—from coffee breaks to self-care treats. You can view your current points, filter rewards by category, check item details, and redeem them with just a tap. A little dopamine boost goes a long way.
With 87% of employees valuing workplace wellness programs that cater to mental health, these rewards align with the growing emphasis on mental health in the workplace.
Learnings & reflection
This project marks my first attempt at designing a product in the HR domain — and it wasn’t an easy one. From understanding complex user roles to conducting meaningful research, I encountered plenty of blind spots. I made assumptions, stumbled through unknowns, and realized just how much depth this domain holds.
If I had more time, I’d try learning how to actually sell this thing because it’s a SaaS after all, not just a pretty face!