Shopmium

Evolve or Stagnate

After a decade of connecting consumers with brands, Shopmium faced a critical inflection point. Their cashback app —unchanged since 2015— was showing signs of age in a rapidly evolving marketplace. With their 10-year anniversary approaching, Shopmium needed more than a visual refresh; they needed a complete reimagining of the user experience to secure their position for the next decade.

The stakes were clear: modernize effectively or risk losing market share to more innovative competitors. This wasn’t just a redesign project, it was a business transformation initiative disguised as an app update.

The Challenge

Redesigning Shopmium presented a complex, multi-dimensional challenge:

• Technical Debt – Six years without significant UX updates had created an experience gap between user expectations and app reality
• Dual-Stakeholder Balance – The platform needed to simultaneously serve consumers (70% women, 25-40, urban) and brands (seeking marketing effectiveness)
• Feature Overload Risk – With a year-long timeline and numerous stakeholders, feature creep threatened to derail the project
• Organizational Alignment – Any redesign would affect every department, requiring careful change management

The central challenge became: How do we transform a functional but aging platform into a modern experience that delivers more value to both users and brands—all while maintaining the core business model?

The Approach

We developed a four-phase process that balanced inclusive exploration with ruthless prioritization:

1. Multi-Perspective Discovery

Rather than limiting research to users alone, we expanded discovery to include:

• Comprehensive App Audit – Mapping every screen and user flow to identify friction points
• User Research – Surveys and interviews with primary demographic (urban women 25-40)
• Attrak-Diff Analysis – Using Testapic to create a precise emotional profile of the user experience
• Competitive Benchmarking – Identifying opportunities for differentiation
• Cross-Functional Workshops – Involving all Shopmium teams to gather diverse perspectives

The unique inclusion of all Shopmium employees not only generated better ideas but also created crucial organizational buy-in for the eventual changes.

2. Strategic Prioritization

Facing an abundance of potential improvements, we had to face a critical prioritization phase using a modified RICE methodology (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort). This allowed us to make reasoned decisions about what to include and, most importantly, what to exclude.

This was where I learned the project’s most important lesson: “Choosing is giving up.” As a designer with abundant ideas, learning to let go of good-but-not-essential features was crucial to project success.

3. Iterative Refinement

With our priorities established, we entered a focused refinement phase:

• Developed low-fidelity prototypes of key user flows
• Validated concepts with stakeholders from all departments
• Tested with users to identify friction points
• Optimized for both user experience and brand exposure

Throughout this phase, we maintained the delicate balance between consumer needs and brand requirements, recognizing that both were essential to the platform’s success.

4. Validation & Launch

The final phase focused on ensuring the redesign would deliver real business impact:

• Conducted beta testing on iOS with a subset of users
• Established clear metrics for success across user satisfaction and business performance
• Prepared a robust launch plan with contingencies
• Created a measurement framework combining quantitative metrics (conversion, retention, crashes) and qualitative feedback (in-app tile, support team, store reviews)

The Solution

The redesigned Shopmium emerged as a thoroughly modern cashback platform with several key improvements:

Enhanced Discovery

The redesigned browsing experience made it easier for users to find relevant offers through:

• Personalized recommendations based on purchase history
• Improved category navigation
• More intuitive functionalities
• Clearer presentation of offer details

Strategic Brand Exposure

For Shopmium’s brand partners, the redesign created more impactful exposure opportunities:

• Refined product teasers to drive engagement without disrupting user experience
• Enhanced product detail pages with richer content
• Improved analytics on user engagement
• More natural integration of branded content

Modern Visual Language

While maintaining brand recognition, the visual design was completely refreshed to align with contemporary mobile patterns:

• Cleaner layout with improved information hierarchy
• More consistent UI components
• Enhanced accessibility
• Alignment with platform guidelines for iOS and Android

Impact & Results

Launched on December 1, 2021, the redesigned app delivered significant improvements across key metrics:

• Increased Conversion – More users completed the cashback redemption process
• Improved Retention – User return rates increased, particularly among newer users
• Higher Satisfaction – User happiness scores improved across all demographic segments
• Reduced Support Inquiries – Clearer flows led to fewer questions and issues
• Enhanced Brand Engagement – Partner brands saw improved interaction with their offers

Beyond the metrics, the project transformed how Shopmium approached product development. The inclusive process created a more collaborative culture and established a framework for future improvements.

Key Lessons

This project reinforced several critical principles that I now apply to all my work:

1. “Choosing is giving up” – The courage to eliminate good ideas in service of great execution is essential to product success

2. Multi-stakeholder inclusion creates better products – Involving everyone from customer support to sales generated better solutions and smoother implementation

3. Balance is everything – The most successful platforms find the sweet spot where business goals and user needs align rather than compete

4. Measurement matters – Defining clear success metrics from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives ensures accountability and learning

The Shopmium redesign demonstrates how thoughtful UX design can simultaneously modernize a platform, improve user experience, and enhance business performance—creating value for all stakeholders.