MyActiveSG+ Rewards Programme
Government Service
UX Research
2025
UX Researcher
Turning Conversations into Actionable UX Research
Project Info
Driving meaningful insights through focused UX research
The ActiveSG Membership Rewards Programme was a UX research initiative aimed at proposing new engagement methods through targeted rewards and campaigns, with the goal of driving user participation and long term retention.
Contributing to Insight driven design
I supported the Design Lead in note taking and assisted in conducting several of the 14 in person focus group discussions with a diverse mix of ActiveSG participants and non-members across different age groups. I then synthesised the findings from all sessions to uncover key insights into user preferences, ensuring the proposed programme remained relevant and effective.
This research laid the groundwork for identifying critical gaps in user engagement and informed the strategic direction for designing an impactful rewards system.
Methodology
Structuring research to capture clear, actionable outcomes
The research was structured around a series of focus group discussions designed to uncover different dimensions of user motivation and engagement. Each session was divided into three segments:
Exploring intrinsic motivation
The first segment examined participants’ personal motivations or disinterest in staying active, and whether the introduction of a rewards system might influence their behaviour. This provided an initial understanding of attitudes towards fitness and incentives.Testing feature concepts
The second segment introduced wireframe mock-ups, each highlighting a potential feature of the envisioned ActiveSG application. Participants were asked to share their impressions of the features’ appeal and effectiveness in driving sustained engagement and app stickiness.Gathering campaign feedback
The final segment focused on two proposed campaigns targeting women and seniors, groups often underrepresented in the fitness space, to assess their potential to widen participation.
Process
Making Sense of Diverse Perspectives
Synthesising the perspectives of 11 focus group discussions / 52 participants presented a significant challenge. The focus group discussions had not been grouped by specific characteristics due to time constraints and coordination, resulting in a vast amount of unstructured information that had to be resolved during the synthesis process.
Organising Themes to Reveal Patterns
To make sense of this, I followed a three-step process to establish structure, refine and uncover meaningful insights:
Establishing structure through categorisation
The first step was establishing structure by categorising participants based on age, which I identified as a key factor. Age mattered for two reasons: it often correlated with mobility, which influenced the types of campaigns each participant could realistically engage in, and it revealed cultural differences between generations that shaped perceptions of rewards and motivations. By grouping participants in this way, I was able to make sense of the unstructured feedback, identify patterns more easily, and set the stage for synthesising insights.Affinity map by segments and content
Once participants were categorised by age, I affinity map their responses by segments and content. Labeling each participant’s age made it easier to identify and verify patterns that were age-related, while also revealing how behaviours and preferences were influenced by mobility, cultural background, or generational attitudes.Synthesised into insights
At the end of the affinity mapping, I synthesised insights by identifying user patterns and reframed them into “How might we” statements. This step translated findings into design opportunities, bridging the gap between raw data and actionable recommendations.
Outcome
Selecting Key Insights That Truly Mattered
I carefully reviewed the synthesised feedback across all three focus group segments and distilled the 22 most impactful insights. Each was chosen based on two criteria: the number of participants who raised the point and the insight’s substance and relevance for informing actionable recommendations. This approach ensured that the final set of findings was both representative and meaningful, capturing the patterns that truly mattered to users.
Reflect
Learning to Lead and Synthesise at Scale
This was the first large-scale UX research project I had the opportunity to be part of, and it was also among my first attempts at conducting live focus group discussions with 4 to 5 participants per session, a task that proved both challenging and rewarding given the number of questions and limited time available. From this experience, I took away two key lessons:
Planning for Effective Affinity Mapping
The quality and efficiency of synthesising insights relies heavily on upfront preparation. Recording user data in a structured workflow, capturing note-taker observations and verbatims, and tagging questions to transcripts are all crucial steps that save time and improve accuracy during synthesis. A quick debrief with the interviewer and note-takers to highlight initial observations can also help guide the direction of emerging insights.Prioritising Questions and Managing Time
Time management and prioritising questions is vital when conducting interviews. While it is tempting to probe every aspect of users’ motivations, focusing on the questions that align with session goals ensures the discussion remains productive. Icebreaking sessions are particularly useful for gauging the type of participants and tailoring the discussion guide, allowing us to ask more targeted questions and uncover richer, actionable insights.
