Teams across AIR MILES began work on a company-wide rebrand effort in 2021. They were led by the consultants at Broken Heart Love Affair. This initiative was focused on updating the visual aesthetic of the AIR MILES while also making a series major programatic updates to inspire and re-engage our collector base. I was the UX Lead on a large program update intended to redesign and reposition our credit card affiliations with the Bank of Montreal and American Express. I worked alongside our Customer Experience team and User Journey Expert to reimagine and reposition the credit cards as a primary way to earn Miles.

My work started before the new brand guidelines were in place. I had to remain flexible, updating the designs as decisions were made. All the while, I would be leading and facilitating the design of this specific initiative. I was working with a short timeline (six weeks) and had to conduct a lift-and-shift of all existing content as to avoid the ten-week AMEX approval process. This limitation would need to be balanced with the intention of re-imagining the experience for collectors.

With our quick turnaround, we did not have time to conduct our typical user research. We instead opted to do benchmark testing on the existing page. Once the re-design was complete, we planned to monitor whether the page was performing as anticipated. We would also monitor how collectors felt about the experience and compare it to our previous benchmark.

My team chose to use an iterative approach, and began to map out the different phases of the project in terms of user journeys. Our subject expert put together each flow from two perspectives: an MVP state and an idealized state. I then took these flows and conducted both a competitive review and a component mapping exercise. This enabled us to understand the amount of work that would be required for each of the phases of the build and earn resource buy-in from stakeholders. As it turns out, we were one of the only pages green-lit to build out new, re-branded components — this was very exciting for our team!

As always, it starts with lo-fi wireframes. This step is particularly important when working with a partner organization as it gets them involved early-on. Using the wireframes as a visual, I could address any miscommunications or issues up-front (and avoid any complications later on). These lo-fi wireframes included some features intended for launch (but were later scoped out of the release) such as the amount of Miles an authenticated collector could have earned as well as the collector story.

Working with partners always provides its own unique set challenges — satisfying requests while staying within the bounds of feasibility, especially when these partners are direct competitors. This project required consistent and frequent meetings to ensure that the pages met their needs, despite the evolving brand guidelines and rebrand choices. I led these stakeholder management efforts and created solutions that ensured that each partner was receiving equal real estate and significance on the page. One creative solution was ensuring that the credit card link-out blocks randomized upon page load.

Once the final designs were approved by all internal and external stakeholders, I began to document both the pages themselves and the new components for our developers. This provided specs for the version of the component required on the page as it currently exists, as well as possible future iterations. The images on the right show documentation for our new Colour Block component. I continued to work closely with developers, providing guidance and answering questions during the build.

Our new and improved version of the BMO and AMEX experience launched in tandem with a television commercial and billboards in Nathan Phillips Square! The page re-invented our credit card experience, using design to create a more streamlined experience that earned us a spot in our primary tab of navigation. Moving forward, we will be working with BMO and AMEX to update the existing content while creating informational pages for each of the credit cards.

Check out the live experience!