Valley View Casino App
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About Valley View Casino & Hotel
Valley View Casino and Hotel is a casino just outside of San Diego. Valley View has had great success with their loyalty program which keeps their customers coming back week after week. They award their most loyal customers with promotions including gifts, points that can be used as cash, tickets to the buffet and raffle entries to win things like sports cars. Customers learn about what they’re eligible for by way of a monthly direct mailer.
Our Objective
Valley View came to Four Winds with a need to evolve their loyalty program onto a digital platform. While their direct mailers have been successful, they want to be able to incentivize and impress users on a daily basis through their mobile device.
This project was also a unique opportunity for Four Winds Interactive as it was their first mobile product. In the past, FWI has limited their products to digital signage, but looking to the future they are going to include mobile as a part of their offering. Because of this, there were many learning experiences internally.
The Design Process
Research
We started our research by holding interviews with key stakeholders while on site. We discussed their vision and main concerns around the product. There was a strong desire for users to think about the casino on a daily basis. Some of their main concerns were the success of launch.
Additionally, we were able to observe the casino and loyalty program first hand. We played casino games and were able to see how the users can accrue points. Furthermore, we were able to go behind the scenes to learn how this point system is created.
Journey Map
Prior to designing the user interface, I created a journey map that walks through the user experience from start to finish.
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I felt that it was important to call out the marketing surrounding this product. This was a component to the launch and ongoing experience that was not FWI’s responsibility, and it would be up to the client to create marketing campaigns to drive the success of this product. Conversely, I made internal leaders at Four Winds aware of this gap between our new offering and our clients. This had not been considered before; unlike mobile apps, large scale digital signs (FWI’s core product) are displayed on a wall where marketing is not necessary. With mobile products, however, users will not know about a mobile product until they are informed. This will almost always take place through a communication plan or marketing campaign.
The second thing that I found especially important at this stage- besides the need for a campaign- was the need for and incentive. In my experience, users are not motivated to go out of their way to make a change unless there is a payoff, and I believe this could be especially true for gamblers and seniors. My suggestion was to offer raffle entries to customers on their mailers and email newsletter as an incentive to download the app.
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To the client, users being able to access their promotions at any time is important, but it is also important that they are thinking about Valley View every day. To do this, I suggested they offer users a daily bonus. They simply open the app to receive their bonus, and once they’re there, they can immediately see what else they can possibly redeem today if they make a visit to the casino. This way daily notifications have purpose and benefit the user, but also form a habit.
Visual Design
Without having a style guide, the customer wasn’t entirely sure what they wanted for a visual design. With discrepancies between their website and marketing materials, it was up to me to create a unified look. I created several different “skins” for them to choose from.
Valley View Casino App
The Solution
Through all of our research and decision making, we were able to produce an end result that looked something like this: