Venture
Helping residents discover local businesses and activities through playful, intuitive exploration.
Product Design · UI/UX · Gamification · Mobile app · 2025
My role
Product / UI Designer
I was responsible for:
UX flows
Interaction design
High-fidelity UI
Prototyping
Gamification concepts
Design system thinking
Tools used:
Figma
FigmaJam
ChatGTP
Adobe Illustrator
Context
Declining local visibility
Local businesses and community activities are often overlooked, even though they play an important role in neighbourhood life. Rising living costs and changing consumer habits have led many residents to rely on larger platforms or travel to central areas, making it increasingly difficult for smaller local businesses to stay visible and competitive.
This project explores how gamified discovery and community-focused design could encourage residents to reconnect with the places and experiences around them.
The challenge
Connecting residents and businesses
Residents struggle to stay informed about what’s happening nearby, while small businesses lack effective ways to reach local audiences. The challenge was to design a platform that makes discovering neighbourhood experiences easy, rewarding, and relevant, while encouraging ongoing engagement and local spending.
The opportunity
Strengthen community pride
There is an opportunity to make local discovery feel more engaging, rewarding, and community driven. By combining gamification with personalised recommendations, the experience could encourage residents to explore nearby businesses and activities they may otherwise overlook, while helping smaller businesses increase visibility and foot traffic.
User flow
Key user goals
Discover overlooked local experiences
Feel rewarded for exploration
Track challenge progress easily
Encourage repeat engagement with local businesses
The solution
Reward local exploration
Venture encourages residents to explore their neighbourhood through themed challenges and reward-based incentives. Users discover experiences, commit to challenges, and earn points by visiting participating businesses. Bookable experiences such as restaurants can be reserved directly in the app, while other visits are verified in-store. By turning local exploration into a rewarding experience, Venture aims to drive repeat engagement and support independent businesses.
Design decisions
Accessibility
Problem:
Not all users have the same mobility, accessibility needs, or availability to participate in certain challenges.
Decision:
I designed a simple three-step filtering flow that allows users to customise challenges based on their preferences, accessibility needs, and activity level.
Outcome:
This provides a more inclusive, flexible, and engaging exploration experience by helping users discover challenges better suited to their individual needs.
Gamification
Problem:
Local discovery platforms can feel passive and transactional, reducing long-term engagement.
Decision:
I introduced lightweight challenges and rewards to encourage repeat interaction without overwhelming users.
Outcome:
This produces a more engaging exploration experience while keeping the interface simple and accessible.
Feature walkthrough
Challenge -based engagement
Encouraging local exploration through challenges and rewards.
Tap “Reward the Roam” to explore local challenges and customise your filters.
Start your challenge
Discover local challenges
Browse themed challenges, review the details, and start tracking your progress.
Reserve a table directly in the app to complete bookable challenges.
Book instantly
Track progress and rewards
Track your progress as you complete challenges and unlock points and rewards.
Design reflection / trade-offs
During the project, I explored physical kiosks as a way to surface local events. User interviews revealed that residents primarily rely on smartphones, and kiosks risked low adoption and high maintenance costs.
Pivoting to a mobile-first app allowed for personalised challenges, easy booking, and scalable verification through QR codes.
In designing the “Reward the Roam” feature, I balanced ease of use with behavioural incentives ensuring the challenge mechanics were motivating without being overly complex. I also considered business impact, making sure reward structures incentivised local spending while remaining feasible for small businesses.
This project strengthened my ability to make design decisions informed by user behaviour, business goals, and long-term engagement strategy.
Impact & success measurement
The platform was designed to create long term engagement between residents and local businesses through community driven exploration and reward based interactions.
User impact
Increased awareness of local events and independent businesses
Encouraged greater participation in neighbourhood activities
Improved trust and confidence in local recommendations
Created a clearer sense of progress and achievement through challenge completion
Increased foot traffic to participating businesses
Improved visibility for small and independent businesses
Encouraged local spending through rewards and challenge-based engagement
Strengthened connections between residents and local business owners
Business impact
Key success metrics (if launched)
To evaluate the platform’s effectiveness, I would track:
Challenge Engagement
Number of challenges started and completed
Challenge completion rate
Reward Activity
Points earned and vouchers redeemed
Local Participation
Event bookings and business visits generated through the platform
Retention
Weekly active users (WAU)
Monthly active users (MAU)
Repeat challenge participation
Business Impact
Engagement uplift for featured businesses
Increased visibility and booking activity for local partners
