Designing for Consultant Growth:
Enhancing the Pulse by Penny Experience
Industry:
Retail, Beauty
Timeline:
2024
RODAN + FIELDS
Role:
Senior Product Designer
Responsibilities:
UX/UI Design
What is Pulse by Penny?
Pulse by Penny is the mobile business app for Rodan + Fields Consultants. It is a platform that helps them manage customers, track business activity, monitor team growth, access training content, manage customer relationships, and stay on top of daily tasks.
I led the redesign of the dashboard and workflows to enhance usability and deliver actionable insights, driving greater user efficiency and satisfaction. I also conceptualized and developed new programs that complemented these improvements, further boosting productivity and engagement.
Led iterative improvements across Pulse’s dashboard, program modules, and critical user journeys, prioritizing high-impact features to improve usability, increase engagement, and modernize the product experience in alignment with business goals.
Goal
Building Programs
The incentive programs typically revolve around motivating consultants to increase their sales, recruit others, and achieve specific performance goals. These programs can include:
Commission-Based Incentives: Consultants earn commissions on product sales and bonuses for team growth or sales volume.
Rewards for Recruiting: Rodan + Fields consultants are incentivized to recruit other consultants to join their network. Higher tiers unlock higher earning potentials.
Recognition Programs: Consultants can earn rewards or recognition based on achieving certain sales targets, leadership goals, or membership milestones.
Challenges & Competitions: Periodic incentive programs where consultants can win prizes based on sales achievements, such as luxury items, vacations, or exclusive training opportunities.
Understanding
the Persona
Collaborated closely with the UX Research team to synthesize findings from multiple studies and define our core user personas. While several distinct segments emerged, Ashley consistently surfaced as our primary and most representative user.
For a consultant like Ashley, using programs in Pulse by Penny creates a clear, repeatable path to success. Structured workflows take the guesswork out of follow-ups and customer care, helping her stay consistent, capture every opportunity, and grow a sustainable business with Rodan + Fields.
How it fits in
Pulse by Penny provides a suite of digital tools designed to support Consultants in growing their businesses.
Among these, Programs stands out as a key driver of growth, offering rewards and recognition that motivate Consultants to engage consistently, helping them expand their business while maintaining momentum.
Each year, the business reviews existing programs to identify areas for improvement and determine whether new programs should be introduced to address any gaps or opportunities.
Overview Page
This serves as the central overview hub, giving users an immediate snapshot of the status of all their progress.
Brilliance Program
The business designed this program to recognize and reward top-performing consultants for their sales achievements, leadership, and team-building efforts. The program operates on a quarterly basis, with consultants working to meet specific sales goals, recruitment targets, and business milestones over each quarter.
On the right, I began with exploratory sketching and translated concepts into lo-fi wireframes, facilitating collaborative working sessions with PM and business partners to validate design direction, align on user needs, and ensure the solution resonated with users while supporting business goals.
After feedback from cross functional teams, I went ahead and mocked up in hi-fidelity.
Most users browse this page on desktop so started off with designing for the common breakpoint.
Final Design
The teams wanted to focus on each quarter’s overview. The design still gives access to all the other quarters, but puts the focus where it matters most: the current quarter and month-to-month progress. This design brings that forward more clearly, showing a simple breakdown of each month within the quarter. We also added room for encouraging copy to help keep users motivated as they move through their goals.
Rising Star Program
The Rising Star Program is another incentive initiative, specifically aimed at new consultants who are just starting their journey with the company. It’s designed to motivate and reward consultants who demonstrate early sales success and leadership potential, helping them build momentum as they grow their business.
Final Design
I designed the achieved state so that it makes progress visually rewarding—completed tiles light up to immediately draw the user’s attention and highlight achievement.
Designing different states of tiles
The Impact
Increased Feature Adoption
Launched new programs within the Pulse by Penny app that drove a 42% increase in engagement with key features within the first 90 days
Enhanced Usability
Redesigned workflows and new programs led to a 30% improvement in usability scores (based on in‑app surveys).
Growth in repeat usage
New program features increased repeat logins by 35%, signaling stronger user habit formation.