Overview
Designing an admin portal that simplified rewards management by 47%
Wolfe is a leader in consumer and corporate gifting. They believe that fast, meaningful, and personalized gifting can transform the way we connect with each other.
The company needed a centralized admin portal for its enterprise clients to manage their employee reward programs. I was tasked with designing an admin portal interface with the goals of letting teams fund programs, track redemptions, and analyze performance all in one place.
Role
Lead UX Designer
Year
2024
Duration
4 weeks
The Challenge
Client's reward programs were scattered across spreadsheets, emails, and outdated third-party tools. There wasn't a simple way to check redemption activity, trends, or users.
My goal was to give them clear, real-time visibility into their reward programs while keeping the experience simple enough. But how?
The solution needed to feel easy to use, transparent, and effortless.
Research & Insights
To ground the redesign in real needs, I Interviewed 10 key stakeholders across client success, finance, and engineering teams. I also mapped out 5 existing client workflows to understand how admins managed funds, tracked redemptions, and measured performance. My goal was to uncover pain points and inefficiencies in their day-to-day experience.
Here's what I found:
• Tracking redemptions was fragmented. Client admins struggled to see how employees redeemed rewards, whether through cash outs, e-gifts, or mailed cards
• Funding campaigns was slow. Adding funds required manual coordination with finance, often delaying launches
• Merchant visibility was limited. Clients wanted insights into where employees spent the most to gauge merchant performance
• Transparency mattered most. Everyone wanted a clear view of total funds, redemption rates, and balances in one place
These insights helped shape the experience I wanted to create by showing data at a glance, prioritizing transparency, and making hard things easier.
I started designing with lo-fi wireframes to see how everything would fit. I wanted to make sure the experience felt smooth enough before moving onto hi-fi designs.
I also mapped out two main user flows: funding an account and adding a new user. They were pretty similar, but running through them helped me spot a few things that could be simplified or moved around. This made it a lot easier to see if the process made sense from beginning to end.
I wrapped this part of my process up by testing the lo-fi prototype with key stakeholders and a few clients.
Through testing I uncovered:
• Users needed a way to access historical data on all pages
• Stakeholders needed to see a breakdown of gifts ordered vs gifts cancelled to spot trends or issues early
• Placing profile details at the bottom of the menu caused users to miss them which reduced discoverability
The insights I gathered from testing gave me the confidence to know that the foundation was solid before I moved onto visuals.
High-Fidelity Design
With the groundwork in place, I could finally move onto the hi-fi designs. This stage was about bringing the visuals to life and making sure the experience felt polished and easy to navigate.
Layouts were tweaked, brand colors were added, and components were built out to maintain consistency. The main focus was making the dashboard easy to scan; I wanted users to get key info at a glance without digging around.
A few updates came directly from testing feedback:
• Date filters were added to all pages so users could pull up historical info quickly
• A graph was added to the home page showing gifts ordered vs. cancelled, which made it easier for admins to spot patterns
• Profile details were moved higher up in the menu to make them easier to find
By the end, the interface felt well-rounded and much closer to how a real client would experience it. It was clean, informative, and built for everyday use.
Prototype & Feedback
Once the hi-fi prototype was ready, I shared it with both clients and internal stakeholders to get a sense of how it felt in use.
The response was overwhelmingly positive. Users liked how clean and organized the dashboard felt — everything they needed was in one place and users could quickly check on program performance without hunting around. Stakeholders especially appreciated how visual the data was, most notably the insights on gift activity and spending trends.
The changes to navigation were also well-received. Moving profile details higher in the menu made the platform feel more intuitive, and the overall flow between pages felt natural.
The feedback confirmed that the designs not only looked good, but also solved the usability issues clients were running into before.
Outcome
The new gifting platform launched smoothly and became a core part of how clients managed their reward programs. Tasks which previously required multiple emails or spreadsheets could now be handled in just a few clicks.
Users said the dashboard felt straightforward and “surprisingly easy to use.” Internal stakeholders were especially happy about the 35% reduction in account management requests from clients.
The biggest improvement came from how the funding flow was revamped. Now that clients could self-fund their own accounts, funding turnaround time was reduced from days to minutes.
Overall, the redesign helped turn what used to be a manual, time-consuming process into a streamlined, self-serve experience that looked and felt modern.
Final Thoughts
This project was a turning point in how I approached design.
Before, I heavily focused on visuals, however, through this process I learned the importance of validating design decisions through research, data, and constraints. I saw firsthand how aligning design strategy with measurable outcomes creates impact that goes beyond aesthetics.
This experience helped me shift from designing what looks good to designing what works for users, for business, and for growth.
