peer-to-peer recognition programKudos to You! A Peer-to-Peer Employee Recognition Initiative
The SnackMagic Employee Recognition Program was designed to enable employees to celebrate and acknowledge each other through a peer-to-peer recognition platform. This feature was thoughtfully crafted to integrate seamlessly into SnackMagic's parent platform while aligning with the company’s mission of fostering stronger workplace relationships.
roledurationproject includesCo-Product Designer
12 Weeks
Research, Features Requirements, Responsive Designs
Project Overview
The program's goal was to transform the act of gifting into a dynamic and interactive social experience, offering employees the ability to send personalized recognition messages and points to peers. The key design challenges included creating an intuitive social feed, ensuring ease of navigation across multiple recognition levels, and maintaining a scalable and user-friendly experience across web and mobile platforms.
Social Feed Integration
Designing a dynamic feed for users to post, react, comment, and engage with recognition messages.
Recognition Mechanics
Allowing employees to assign points to peers, serving as tangible rewards redeemable on the gifting platform.
Privacy and Flexibility
Balancing user experience with the critical administrative controls needed for program scalability.
Project Purpose
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The program operates on a subscription and license model. Admins pay a monthly subscription fee of [X] points for each license in their program. These points, which are set to expire if unused, can be redeemed on our gifting platform for items of the user's choice.
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This program serves as a powerful engagement tool, encouraging a larger portion of our existing user base to interact with the platform more frequently. It offers an additional, customizable way to send gifts or allocate points.
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By allowing users to gift points accompanied by thoughtful messages, the program fosters a sense of appreciation and value. The monetary aspect of the points acts as an incentive, motivating users to acknowledge others and seek acknowledgment in return.
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The program promotes positive, supportive interactions among teammates, encouraging users to observe and participate in acts of recognition. It also empowers employees at all levels—especially those outside of leadership positions—to give meaningful recognition to their peers.
Research Phase
Research Phase
Competitive Analysis
Drawing inspiration from existing social platforms like Facebook, Slack, and Twitter, focusing on features such as reactions, commenting, and tagging since most recognition programs operate similarly as well. Social platforms have the user experience perfectedly, while recognition programs are much less researched and tested.
User Needs Analysis
Studying the behaviors and preferences of target users to understand their expectations for recognition programs and social interactions in the workplace.
Designing for States
The next step was defining the various states within the program to ensure that every interaction, from creating to reacting to posts, was both seamless and enjoyable for users.
Mapping out what a post would require at every stage, including fields for writing a message, adding stickers, or tagging colleagues.
Posts in a Social Feed
Reactions on PostsDesigning intuitive reaction tools that allow employees to engage with posts in meaningful ways, similar to popular social platforms.
Cross-Platform Consistency
Ensuring a cohesive look and feel across web and mobile platforms.
the final design focused on
Clear Hierarchy
Highlighting key details like sender, recipient, and point allocation while maintaining a clean interface.
The designs were validated through iterative testing and collaborative feedback from stakeholders, ensuring the feature met user and business needs.
Scalable Design Patterns
Allowing future iterations and additional features without overhauling the core system.
Looking Back...
This was by far the coolest project I've worked on professionally!!! As a long-time Tweeter and Facebook user, I loved designing a social feed. With SnackMagic's business, creating a peer-to-peer recognition program was concretely the best next move, and I was excited to be heavily involved in the process. As an internal team, we use all our products and continue to send kudos to each other every month. From our use, we've caught bugs and design improvements before our customers do, allowing me to further understand the importance of live product testing.