Allē Grow: Product Design Vision

Allergan Aesthetics set out to improve its rewards program with Bttr. As the UX and product design consulting partner, our team helped stand up the Allē rewards program, including Alle.com, the Allē app, and the strategy for what came next. Grow was that next step. It was the early name for the Allē for Business initiative.

A new business initiative comes with a lot of open questions. We needed to understand the customer journey for Grow from three angles at once: what past research had already told us, what the product looked like today, and what it could become.

Underneath all of it sat one question. What does each customer persona need, where do they struggle, and how does that shape Grow's path into Beta and General Release?

We set out to discover the needs and challenges of each customer persona, using the Allē Insights Research Report that Bttr completed in May 2021 as our foundation. Then we would connect those needs to where Grow was headed.

I wanted the work to leave people with something they could react to, not a report they had to read. A vision to align on, and a prototype that made the possibilities easy to talk about with executives, product teams, and eventually business partners.

The work covered three connected pieces, delivered across eight sprints: a Grow vision, ideation, and a speculative prototype. I owned the UX strategy and the prototype ideation. The prototype was speculative by design. Its job was to explore and persuade, not to ship.

This was a partnership. Our wider Bttr consulting team of about 12 UX designers worked with Allergan Aesthetics' internal stakeholders and product teams to modernize and extend the Allē platform. On Grow, I worked day to day with a core team of seven or more.

• Senior executives, Allergan AestheticsThe decision makers who green-lit the Allē for Business platform.
• Internal stakeholders and product teamsThe teams who would carry the vision forward as a north star.
• B2B partnersThe audience for the prototype's promotional materials.
• Bttr teamOne product manager, one Chief Design Officer, four UX designers, one UI designer, and me as Sr. Product/UX Designer.

The work ran in Q2 and Q3 of 2021, in two-week agile sprints. We moved from understanding to ideas to something people could see and touch.

1. S1
2. S2
3. S3
4. S4
5. S5
6. S6
7. S7
8. S8

• Vision Sprints 1–3 Grounding the work in the May 2021 research, the current product, and the future of Grow.
• Ideation Sprints 3–4 Exploring how each persona's needs could shape the experience.
• Speculative prototype Sprints 5–8 Turning the strongest ideas into something people could react to.

Each artifact had a job. Some helped the team think, and others helped people outside the team believe.

I looked at what we learned two ways: against the business goals, and against what success meant for the people on the project.

Business success

Senior executives green-lit the Allē for Business platform. The prototype became a north star vision that was shared around Allergan teams, and its promotional materials were previewed for B2B partners to highlight the value the platform could bring to their businesses. [Add any numbers, such as partner interest or adoption, if you have them.]

Stakeholder success

Executives had something concrete to decide on. Internal teams had a shared direction. Partners could see the value for themselves. [Add a stakeholder quote if you have one.]

What I took from it

Build on what you already know. The May 2021 research gave us a head start, so we spent our time on the future instead of re-learning the past.

A prototype changes the conversation. People react to something they can see far faster than something they have to imagine.

Design for more than one audience. The same work had to persuade executives, guide internal teams, and speak to partners. Each needed a different way in.

What I'd do differently. In hindsight, I would have involved internal teams earlier in the prototype process as they were responsible for the implementation of the larger vision. It would have saved time and improved the final product because design at this scale is a team effort.