REDUCING ABANDONMENT IN CIBC’S AVENTURA REWARDS
Redeeming rewards points online felt more frustrating than rewarding for many users. Navigation challenges, unclear processes, and inefficiencies led to significant drop-offs.
COMPANY
CIBC
ROLE
UX Research / UX Design / Product Strategy
PRODUCT
Mobile Rewards Redemption Site
SITUATION
OVERVIEW
CIBC’s loyalty brand, Aventura, focuses on travel and everyday spending, allowing customers to earn points for purchases that can be redeemed for flights, vacations, merchandise, gift cards, and more.
NOTE
Details on the initial version of the website may be vague to protect the client’s intellectual property.
OPPORTUNITY
My team was tasked to redesign the mobile-first website for CIBC Aventura Rewards due to a significant drop off in the redemption flow. The most prevalent drop-off can be seen between stages of browsing product details and the checkout flow. Due to this CIBC began to inspect the redemption flow closer to identify the variables that could be causing this.
Funnel chart showing number of Aventura mobile site users at each step of the non-travel redemption flow.
BEYOND NUMBERS
The significance of this specific quantitative data offers limited insight into users’ behaviours and intentions. While it identifies a broad and high level touch-point, it prompts a deeper study into the granular interactions users’ exhibit throughout their entire session on the site to understand the underlying causes.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
WHO
Members and Non-members of Aventura looking to redeem non-travel rewards.
WHAT
A significantly high number of members abandonment rate in redemption flow.
WHERE
In the non-travel redemption flow on CIBC’s Aventura reward redemption site.
WHEN
Between stages of viewing product details and completing the checkout flow.
WHY
This problem likely indicates issues such as friction or confusion in the user journey, which impacts the overall user experience and reduces conversion rates. Addressing this issue is crucial for improving user satisfaction and increasing successful redemptions.
Users of CIBC's Aventura Rewards mobile site struggle to complete the non-travel redemption process, resulting in unredeemed rewards and ineffective site use. The mobile site needs a redesign the redemption flow, encouraging users to complete their rewards redemption.
ACTION
RESEARCH GOALS
Our study aimed to evaluate whether members and non-members could understand and navigate the website, measured through task completion time, first-time success rate, task improvement rate, and qualitative insights like confidence and difficulty ratings, comments, and think-aloud protocols.
We also analyzed the efficiency of the redemption flow using time on task, task success rate, error rate, and qualitative feedback from think-alouds, confidence and difficulty ratings, and comments.
Lastly, user satisfaction during the redemption process was assessed through confidence and emotional response ratings, navigation path analysis, and related qualitative feedback. The study focused on four key usability metrics: learnability, efficiency, navigation, and user satisfaction.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Our research methodology combined usability testing and surveys to evaluate the mobile site experience. We conducted both moderated and unmoderated usability testing using usabilitytesting.com, where participants were given 30 minutes to complete five tasks while thinking aloud.
Following each task, participants answered survey questions designed to measure difficulty and confidence, offering quantitative data to complement the observational findings. The survey also included questions focusing on key aspects such as the ease of gift card redemption, navigation, readability, and presentation, ensuring a well-rounded assessment of the site's usability.
USABILITY TESTS & INTERVIEWS
By conducting usability testing and interviews with our internal team first, we were able to identify and address non-cardholder-related issues, which reduced research costs and allowed us to refine our test to minimize biases for subsequent user testing on usertesting.com
Usertesting.com usability test
Internal usability test
USER FLOW
Redemption User Flow
Task 2 User Flow - Mini Bose Speaker Redemption Flow
Understanding users' mental models helps reveal the gap between their expectations and actual behaviors during tasks. This insight allows us to design more effective experiences by equipping users with the right tools at the right time.
HYPOTHESIS
Tailoring the redemption flow to address the specific needs of different user segments (such as age group 45-65) will improve overall usability and satisfaction across all age groups.
Enhancing the instructional copy within the redemption flow will increase the percentage of users who complete tasks efficiently and confidently.
Improving the visual design of “Shop All Products”, “Product Detail” and checkout pages will increase the percentage of users who find necessary information and complete the redemption process successfully.
RESULTS
The overall average task completion time across all age groups shows that the first two tasks and the final task took significantly longer to complete.
Tasks 2 and 5, in particular, involved aspects related to reward points, while Task 1 focused on gift cards. This trend is evident in both graphs.
INITIAL FINDINGS
Low Learnability for age group 45-65
It was clear there were usability challenges, specifically for the 45-65 age group. Navigation and product detail viewing were efficient overall but the initial learnability was low for this demographic, leading to drop-offs and frustration before completing checkout.
This suggested a need to optimize for first-time comprehension and reduce cognitive load for older users.
Absence of primary use cases
The site’s experience did not prioritize elements essential to primary use cases, including cardholder points, reward redemption costs, limited-time offers, and help resources.
An extensive redesign was needed to better align the interface with these core user needs, making information more accessible and prominent.
“Customer Journeys are non-linear”
For a site catering to a diverse target demographic, focusing on just one user journey is inadequate. It's essential to implement flexible navigation structures, such as global tabs, and include more visual cues and guidance to accommodate various pathways instead of enforcing a single journey.
SOLUTIONS
Most failed attempts by age group 45-65 stemmed from copy readability and clarity issues. Our research pointed to a need for greater focus on accessibility, visual hierarchy, and reworking user flows.
We redesigned the FAQ section in response to feedback from users aged 45-65, who reported difficulty understanding the content and navigating between pages, giving it a helpfulness rating of 2/5. To address these issues, we refined the copy to make it more concise, ensured terminology aligned consistently with the rest of the site, and used distinct font styles to clearly differentiate questions from answers, improving clarity and usability.
We noticed a lot of quick scrolling and frustration around looking for rewards and product details. Users overlooked and felt overwhelmed by the UI design choices for products were laid out and lack of visual hierarchy, specifically on the product gallery and product details page. Our focus here was to reduce cognitive load and place more emphasis on visual hierarchy.
“Importance of understanding emotional triggers”
Observing users' emotional reactions, such as frustration or overwhelm, offers valuable insights into their mobile experience. These reactions, often unconscious, reveal factors driving abandonment or continued engagement that may not surface through direct user feedback alone.
NAVIGATION PREFERENCE
Interviews revealed that many cardholders browse the site casually but often know what they want when they redeeming, making the search bar a crucial element. However, the search bar is hidden on the product gallery page, rather than on every page and prominently on the homepage.
RETROSPECTION
Challenges and Growth Opportunities
One challenge was understanding the non-linear nature of user journeys. While we succeeded in creating flexible pathways, the experience highlighted the need to dig deeper into edge cases and ensure robust solutions for varying use cases. Another growth opportunity lay in optimizing the research process—using advanced tools like heat mapping or session recording earlier on could have provided deeper insights into user behaviors and refined our approach more effectively.
Bridging Quantitative Insights with Behavioral Understanding
While the drop-off rates provided a clear indicator of where users disengaged, they lacked context about why these issues occurred. Through usability testing, I uncovered that the friction stemmed from overlooked areas like cognitive overload during product browsing and unclear redemption costs. This reinforced the importance of connecting quantitative data with qualitative insights to address both user actions and their underlying motivations.
Improving Non-Linear User Journeys
The non-linear nature of customer journeys on the Aventura site revealed that a rigid flow doesn’t align with how users approach redemption tasks. Many users preferred searching for specific rewards rather than browsing, yet the search bar was hidden on critical pages. Redesigning navigation to support flexible pathways, such as adding global tabs and improving search visibility, addressed this issue. This taught me to anticipate varying user behaviors and ensure navigation structures support multiple pathways from the start.