Shift4 Cares
Responsive web design to help support local businesses during the pandemic.
Overview
Many businesses were losing revenue due to the economic impact of COVID-19 on restaurants, bars, hotels, and other businesses across the country. Shift4 Payments launched an initiative to support these businesses.
The program allowed people to purchase gift cards from participating businesses, with Shift4 contributing an additional 5% to increase the impact of every sale.
Role
I was the lead UX/UI designer for the project, working closely with stakeholders to establish the design direction during the early planning and concept phases.
Strategy & Concept
We needed to create a simple and efficient way for people to visit a web portal, search for a business or restaurant they wanted to support, purchase one or more gift cards, and have those gift cards delivered.
On the business side, we needed to track each purchase so Shift4 could apply its additional 5% contribution to the corresponding sale.
The challenge was delivering this experience within a week's deadline.
Wireframes
I collaborated with the executive team, marketing leads, and developers to explore early iterations of the user experience and user flows.
I created low-fidelity wireframes in Balsamiq to establish the initial design direction and gain early stakeholder alignment.
Challenges
The biggest challenge was the extremely short timeline for launching the minimum viable product (MVP). With only 3–5 business days available, the team had to prioritize essential functionality over some aspects of the user experience.
Several of my initial design proposals were deferred to a later phase to meet the deadline. When implementation constraints arose, I worked with the development team to adjust the designs and document the deferred improvements for future consideration.
I also coordinated design efforts with our Lithuanian office to maximize productivity and ensure the development team received the necessary design assets on time.
Outcome
Following the launch of Shift4 Cares, the team reported that more than 1,000 gift cards were sold during the first week.
The initiative also received press coverage highlighting Shift4's efforts to support businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Celebrity supporters contributed promotional videos encouraging people to purchase gift cards from their favorite restaurants and local businesses.
Overall, the program helped generate additional purchases for participating businesses during a challenging economic period while supporting Shift4's broader business objectives.
Heuristic Review
Due to the project's tight deadline, we weren't able to conduct formal task-based usability testing before launch. As development progressed, we also had to adjust the designs to accommodate technical constraints identified by the team.
A couple of weeks after launch, I began conducting small-scale heuristic reviews of the existing website to identify usability issues and opportunities for improvement.
I shared my findings with key stakeholders and created additional design mockups demonstrating how we could improve the overall user experience.
Learnings
This project was a valuable opportunity to understand how our team could respond to a complex challenge under an extremely tight deadline. Clear communication and close collaboration were essential to delivering the MVP successfully. It also helped us better understand our team's capacity and the importance of having a shared plan and clear direction.
The process wasn't without compromises. At times, implementation constraints influenced design decisions more than user needs. As a result, we accumulated design debt by simplifying or postponing improvements that could have made the experience better.
Launching an MVP allowed us to respond quickly to the urgent needs of local businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. With more time, I would have prioritized usability testing to better understand how people interacted with the experience and identify opportunities to improve it.