A wellness app that rewarded users with data for walking. Singtel's first non-telco service on the MySingtel App. 250,000 sign-ups in 3 months with a 97% onboarding rate. I was the UX designer responsible for prototypes, onboarding flows, micro-interactions, and visual development.
StepUp was a wellness app created as part of Singtel's digital transformation to expand beyond traditional telco experiences. Partnering with AIA, we rewarded users with mobile data for walking, integrating a completely new service within the existing MySingtel App. I was the UX designer on a team led by our Design Director and Product Director.
We needed to introduce something entirely new, a wellness product, inside an app people used for telco billing and data top-ups. Users didn't expect it, and the AIA partnership required us to collect personal data (name, gender, DOB) during onboarding.
How to introduce a wellness service within an existing telco app without disrupting current user flows or feeling like an intrusion.
How might we make a non-telco service feel native within the MySingtel App?
AIA required personal data (name, gender, DOB) during onboarding. Collecting this without making users feel like they're filling out a form was essential.
How might we collect personal data without it feeling like a form?
Users needed to learn new concepts: step tracking, data rewards, ticket redemption. No lengthy tutorials or text-heavy onboarding screens.
How might we teach a reward system through doing rather than explaining?
StepUp needed to feel like MySingtel: Gratifying, Reliable, Open, Community. While being distinct enough to register as something new and valuable.
How might we create a distinct wellness identity within an existing brand system?
We surveyed 200 users on rewards, walking frequency, and competitor app familiarity. We ran three sign-up concepts in parallel, prototyped an interactive weight scale in HTML on CodePen, and killed it when it proved slower than a text field. The best design was often the simplest.
Insights from usability tests guided user motivation in our app. 200 users were surveyed on rewards, walking frequency for rewards, and competitor app familiarity. Free data was an attractive reward, and users aged 40 to 60 were familiar with wellness apps. A milestone checker was suggested for the reward flow, and the onboarding flow was improved by collecting user data without profiling.
I organised a brainstorming session with the Design Director and the Product Director where we identified the most important features that needed to be included in the onboarding flow. We determined that onboarding needed to collect name, gender, and DOB, but profiling was moved to the Challenges flow to reduce friction.
Small pleasures, making everyday better, making you smile.
Anywhere anytime, consistent, accessible, dependable.
All walks of life, inclusive, airy, approachable.
Diversity, harmony, Singaporean, teamwork.
Instead of explaining the reward system, we built redemption into the onboarding flow itself. Users received a 1GB data voucher upon completion, learning the claim flow by actually doing it.
Three sign-up concepts tested: cute/playful, brand-focused, and task-focused. The task-focused approach won. Clean, purposeful, and fitting the brand. Illustrations and interactions replaced clinical form fields.
Initial banner design minimised features. Testing revealed users needed to see their step progress to feel the app was gratifying. We prioritised information over space, showing collection data upfront.
StepUp incentivised users to return to the MySingtel App frequently for point collection towards data and other benefits. The entry point design needed to avoid intrusiveness or competition with existing services, while still communicating value upfront.
The design objectives for sign-up were clear: enhance the process using illustrations and interaction, minimise visual clutter to reduce cognitive load, and let users enter data without feeling like it's a form. We tested three concepts to find the right balance.
The onboarding flow consisted of six stages: entry point, registration, animated dashboard, notification, ticket feature introduction, and redemption. I suggested creating a limited-time onboarding prize of 1GB of data to motivate user sign-ups and introduce the redemption flow during onboarding. Without this, users may not know how to redeem their points until after completing milestones.
We built the redemption flow as part of the onboarding so that users could immediately understand how the redemption works upon the first visit on the app. Using these techniques, we were able to educate the users about the app in one go.
