Professional work · DMI
Virgin Red:Better daysto life.
Designing a loyalty experience that keeps people coming back.
One mobile-first loyalty experience, bringing customers and possibilities from across the Virgin world together.
Role: Design Owner
Partner: Virgin Red · DMI
Engagement: Four years
Virgin Red / Loyalty experienceVirgin Red project hero visual.
One loyalty proposition
Bringing the
Virgin world
together.
Virgin Red began as a startup loyalty platform with an ambitious proposition: help customers discover experiences across Virgin businesses through one mobile-first loyalty experience.
The goal was to move beyond separate brand programmes and make the wider Virgin world feel connected, personal and rewarding.
Virgin Red / The propositionA unified loyalty experience across Virgin businesses.
Product thinking · Design craft
A design partner,
not just
a design team.
DMI was Virgin Red’s recognised design partner. The team was invited to contribute product thinking alongside design execution: identifying opportunities, shaping ideas and exploring ways to delight Virgin customers.
My contribution included bringing forward feature ideas and working with product management to turn opportunities into considered experiences.
Roadmap to release
From roadmap
to release.
As Design Owner, I worked with Virgin Red and DMI product management on roadmap priorities and requirements, then planned and designed features across releases.
I collaborated closely with developers, explained design decisions, supported implementation, conducted design QA and worked with Virgin’s design team on brand approvals.
Project screensVirgin Red project screens.
Prototype usability testing
Designing around
real behaviour.
The original project documentation describes remote prototype usability testing for the new account creation flow using email and Facebook.
Five UK participants aged 27-47 took part. Testing was used to validate the prototype before release; no participant quotes or specific findings are reproduced here.
Original research artefactRemote usability testing with five participants, as documented in the original article.
05 / The Engagement Insight
Sometimes, the
experience is
the reward.
My observation from the project was that engagement could come from the experience itself: playing simple games, opening new vaults, collecting points, competing on leaderboards and earning recognition-even when the reward had little monetary value.
Engagement is not always bought through rewards. It can be built through curiosity, achievement, progression and recognition.
Original app experienceA qualitative observation from working on the product, not a quantified research finding.
Every detail matters
Trust lives
in the details.
Signup and account verification, preference personalisation and a reusable design system all helped make the experience coherent and dependable.
My work considered GDPR and applicable UK and European requirements, alongside Virgin brand alignment and design approvals. The source article’s “100% GDPR Compliance” claim is not repeated as a certification.
Account verification
GDPR ComplianceMake ideas work in product
Ideas, made
shippable.
Explorations and recommendations helped inform product conversations; they were not all released features. I partnered with developers through handoff and implementation, answering questions and checking the built experience against the design.
Release decisions and delivery were shared across the wider Virgin Red and DMI teams.
Explore → align with product and brand → design and hand off → support implementation → review quality
08 / Impact
Growing a loyalty community.
Virgin Red grew to more than one million loyal users over four years. This was a platform outcome, delivered through the work of many people; it is not attributed to design alone.
Design ownership · Product experience leadership
Owning the
experience.
I brought product thinking and design craft together across the engagement, from early opportunity shaping through release support.
- Product thinking and feature ideation
- End-to-end feature design ownership
- Roadmap and release collaboration
- Prototype usability validation
- Cross-functional coordination with product and engineering
- Design quality, brand alignment and governance
Professional work · DMI
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