Screenshot of Sammie's Gourmet Subs' website displayed on four smartphones, showcasing personalized e-gift card design options, payment, donation features, and order confirmation on an orange background.

Timeline

  • September - December 2025 (12 weeks)

My Role

  • Solo student project for User Experience and Web Design Course

CONTEXT

About the Project

Sammie’s is a digital-first sub shop that partners with the Humane Society, offering a modern, delivery-focused food experience. The app allows users to easily browse, order, and interact with the brand. I was tasked with designing a gift card flow that would increase engagement while making the experience feel more personal and meaningful.

PROBLEM

Mobile e-gift card experiences lack personalization, making it feel less meaningful.

By talking to potential users and competitor research, I found that personalization options for gift cards on mobile are often limited. Users are usually restricted in how they can customize the experience, such as choosing the amount, delivery methods, adding meaningful messages, or selecting designs. This can make the process feel more transactional and less thoughtful.

SOLUTION

Allow users more ways to customize their e-gift cards.

Screenshots of a mobile app for ordering gift cards on Sammie's Gourmet Subs website, showing options for selecting a gift card design, amount, and send date, with a section highlighting flexible gifting options.
Slide with text about Impact of donations and a smartphone displaying a donation form for Sammie's Gourmet Subs on the right side.
Screenshot of a presentation slide and two mobile app screens. The slide discusses personalization and expression, mentioning increased likelihood of purchase, sender photo, multiple delivery methods, and custom messages. The mobile screens show an interface for adding images and entering recipient information for a gift delivery app, with options to input name, contact details, and message.

“..the appeal for personalization is high, with 80% of respondents indicating they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences and 90% indicating that they find personalization appealing”

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS + THE GAP

The Competition had NO FLEXIBILTY

While keeping the above statistic in mind, I analyzed four popular sandwich chains and found that their e-gift card experiences lacked flexibility and meaningful personalization. Common limitations included minimal design options, restricted delivery methods (only sent through email), fixed or limited amount customization, and a lack of smaller details that make a gift feel personal.

This revealed an opportunity to design a more customizable and expressive gift card experience for Sammie’s.

Logos of Subway, Jimmy Johns, Jersey Mike's, and Firehouse Subs, with their names below.

USER INTERVIEWS

My interviewees were more likely to engage with e-gift cards when personalization is available.

Although research showed that personalization increases engagement, I wanted to better understand how users perceive digital gifting experiences. I conducted 5 interviews with users to identify common frustrations and opportunities within existing e-gift card flows. I asked them the questions below to find trends on why they didn’t purchase e-gift cards, then organized my data though affinity mapping.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

  1. How do you typically purchase or send gift cards?

  2. What makes a gift feel meaningful to you?

  3. Have you ever sent a digital gift card? What was that experience like?

  4. What features would make a gift card feel more personal?

  5. On a scale form 1-10, how important is customization when giving a gift and why?

A digital whiteboard with colorful sticky notes organized into sections titled 'Emotional Connection,' 'Additional Insights,' 'Self-Expression,' and 'Control.' The notes contain handwritten text discussing topics related to gift-giving and personal feelings.

RESEARCH

Personalized experiences can increase engagement by up to 80%

In my research, I explored how personalization impacts user behavior and perceived value - when I stumbled upon an eye opening statistic from Epsilon:

THE MAIN INSIGHT

E-gift cards feel more like sending money than giving a thoughtful gift.

Based on trends in my affinity map, I noticed how many recive the current e-gift card experience impersonal. Without the ability to customize or add meaningful details, gifting felt more like sending money than giving a thoughtful gift.

A document titled 'Major Insights' listing three themes: 1. Self-Expression, 2. Control, 3. Emotional value, with bullet points explaining each theme.

PERSONA

To better understand the target users, I created persona to better understand what users think, feel, and need throughout the experience.

TESTING + IMPROVEMENTS

3 Major Improvements in my Design

Based on various feedback from my professor and peers, I continually iterated my design over the span of 4 weeks with 3 major improvements:

Final Flow

The Final Product

The Style Guide

CONCLUSION

Reflection & Takeaways

This was my first ever UX project! I am grateful this project taught me designing meaningful experiences goes far beyond creating polished screens. I got to experience the entire UX process and learned a lot. Here are a few things I learned along the way:

  1. You don’t need the perfect solution immediately

    One of the biggest things I learned throughout this project was that strong solutions rarely appear on the first attempt. Iteration exists to test ideas, uncover what works, and identify what doesn’t. Some of my strongest improvements came after realizing earlier decisions were not solving the problem as effectively as I thought.

  2. A design not working doesn’t mean failure

    During the process, I learned that unsuccessful ideas are still progress. Every design decision that didn’t work helped me better understand the user problem and pushed me closer to a stronger solution. Receiving feedback and revisiting my designs became one of the most valuable parts of the project.

  3. Making decisions easier for users

    I learned that giving users clear choices can create a smoother experience than requiring them to manually input information. Providing structured options helped reduce cognitive load, simplified decision making, and made the flow feel faster.

If you'd like to connect, collaborate, or chat about design, feel free to reach out at rosem9298@outlook.com

Thanks for reading!✨

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