Work / Rewards
Case study · Kohl’s × Capital One · Consumer · Loyalty

Rewards Activity — designing transparency into loyalty.

Cardholders earned rewards that silently converted into Kohl’s Cash every month — with no place to see any of it. I led the design of the first-ever Rewards Activity page for the co-branded credit card: a net-new experience that made earning visible, conversion understandable, and expiration impossible to miss.

ROLE
Lead Product Designer
PARTNERS
Kohl’s & Capital One — product, marketing, CS
PLATFORMS
Kohl’s web & mobile
SCOPE
Net-new page, zero to launch
$77M
in additional revenue through increased engagement and cardholder transactions
−35%
rewards-related support inquiries after launch — down from 30% of all contacts
+20%
Kohl’s Cash redemptions, with a 15% increase in transaction volume
The problem

A loyalty program customers couldn’t see.

Rewards were issued and automatically converted into Kohl’s Cash at the start of each month — but cardholders had no visibility into their balance, the conversion process, or expiration dates. The result was confusion, missed redemptions, and frustration on both sides of the partnership.

For the business: lower engagement and card usage, high support costs, and unredeemed Kohl’s Cash that never turned into a store visit.

30%of customer-support inquiries were about rewards tracking, conversion, and expiration
0centralized places to check a rewards balance or redemption options
Monthlysilent conversion into Kohl’s Cash — value expiring before customers knew they had it
Research & discovery

Two brands, one customer — grounded in interviews, support data, and the competitive field.

15+ INTERVIEWS

How customers actually tracked rewards — and how little they understood about Kohl’s Cash conversion.

SUPPORT DATA ANALYSIS

Quantified the pain: 30% of inquiries traced to tracking, conversion, and expiration questions.

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

Studied credit-card rewards programs across the industry for proven patterns worth adapting.

WHAT THE RESEARCH MADE CLEAR
Users wanted one place to see their Kohl’s Cash balance and understand how rewards became spendable value.
Confusion about conversion and missed expiration dates — not lack of interest — drove the low redemption rates.
Personalized incentives had untapped potential to deepen loyalty and card usage.
Design process

A net-new page, structured from zero.

01
Information architecture that explains itself

With no existing page to iterate on, I structured the logic first: a centralized dashboard showing total earned rewards, the amount converted into Kohl’s Cash, and its expiration date — with clear visuals explaining how and when conversion happens, and progress cues pointing to the next one.

02
Motivation, not just information

Progress indicators toward the next Kohl’s Cash threshold, personalized offers based on spending patterns, and automated expiration alerts — features designed to turn passive visibility into active engagement.

03
Prototype, test, iterate — with 20+ users

An interactive Figma prototype went through usability testing focused on clarity of tracking and conversion. Iterations driven by that feedback produced a 40% improvement in comprehension of the rewards conversion process and 25% faster time-to-check balance.

04
Live site

The Rewards Activity page shipped to kohls.com — here it is in production, on desktop and mobile. Click either screen to view it full size.

Kohl’s Rewards Activity page on desktop, live on kohls.com
Desktop — Kohl’s Cash balance, per-purchase earning with rate and posting date, and 30-day expiration in one view
Kohl’s Rewards Activity page on mobile
Mobile — the same activity, balance, and expiration, adapted for the phone
Results & business impact

Transparency turned out to be the growth feature.

Due to the sensitive nature of Kohl’s and Capital One partnership data, specific internal documentation is excluded from this case study.

$77M in additional revenue through increased engagement and cardholder transactions
Customer satisfaction scores up 30% with full visibility into rewards conversion
Kohl’s Cash redemptions up 20%; transaction volume up 15%
Rewards-related support inquiries down 35%, saving support costs annually
Reflection

When customers can see the value, they use it.

The rewards program didn’t need new benefits — it needed to be legible. Making conversion visible, expiration unmissable, and progress tangible changed both the customer relationship and the business math, across two brands with one shared customer.

Designing a net-new experience from zero — IA, motivation mechanics, testing, launch — is the fullest expression of the product design craft: nothing to lean on but the research.