McDonald’s
Introducing MyMcDonald’s Rewards the public
Perhaps our most complicated endeavor, I was a design lead on the team that introduced McDonald’s Loyalty program to mobile and kiosk experiences. This initiative would become the cornerstone of McDonald's digital transformation, designed to convert occasional visitors into loyal brand advocates while accelerating adoption across its massive global footprint.
My Role
I was responsible for exploring and implmenting the visual expression of the loyalty program across app and kiosk products. I led design initiatives for adaptions to components, new documentation for design guides, and animated all lottie animations for branded moments.
#1
Created world's fastest-growing loyalty program in food service.
21M
Enrolled 21M customers in first six months (Jul-Dec 2021).
400%
Increased average orders among loyalty users to 4x normal rate.
$30B
Generated $30B in systemwide sales to loyalty members in 2024.
Starting with Signal Points
To introduce a new rewards program, we started small. We looked at elements within the experience that were touched by the existing program. Identifying these pieces of the experience would allow us to explore design in an isolated way and were the first steps in unifying a new look and feel we could introduce to the world.
We had a lot to work with over the years of working on loyalty, from entire screen designs to animations and interactive moments.
In isolation, we could start to see pieces of the brand coming together. It became instantly clear how we could use the new gradient in the halo, allowing us to instantly identify reward items, focus content, as well as feature more illustrative moments. A favorite detail of mine has always been the stack of coins paired with a reward item point value. It’s distinct, recognizable, and smartly uses the McDonald’s ‘Golden Arches’ as the coin highlight.
Reinventing the Wheel (And Sometimes, Reusing it)
The entirety of the Rewards logic and points system was being rebuilt in the background. We had constant conversations market to market on who would adopt what and how that would impact design across both the app and the kiosk experiences.
Sometimes we’d get lucky and work we did in the past would find its way into the present.
Seeing it Take Shape
The dashboards across both app and kiosk began to come to life as we introduced all of the new reward elements and unified the look and feel across the two products.
The kiosk experience got fully updated as part of this effort, including new reward PDPs and authentication flows for rewards members.
Lift Off
When we introduced the MyMcDonald’s, things took off for our teams. We saw an immediate success and the app hasn’t looked back.
McDonald’s became the #1 food app, it surpassed 50M daily app users, and the user based increased 45% by the following year.
Outcomes & Takeaways
Bite Size
A project of this scale benefited from looking at the small things first, rather than trying to tackle an entirely new offering in one swing.
Know When to Pull Back
Early iterations of the brand coated the products in gradients and full washes of color. We wanted something new, but we needed to find the right balance in maintaining offerings that were still distinctly McDonald’s.