Promotional campaigns are a key driver of player acquisition and engagement.

These promotions were configured through an internal platform known as the bonus engine.

The platform allowed teams to configure multiple aspects of a promotion.

THE CHALLENGE

Over time the bonus engine had evolved into a complex configuration platform.

Creating or updating a promotion required navigating multiple rule types, reward states, eligibility conditions, and campaign parameters.

Participants included campaign managers, product managers, operations specialists, and compliance teams who interacted with the system at different stages of the promotion lifecycle.

This research uncovered usability challenges within the interface as well as deeper issues in how promotions were configured, validated, and managed across a globally distributed organisation.

Discovery activities.

The discovery phase focused on understanding both the configuration workflow and the underlying system logic behind promotion setup.

These activities helped uncover the gap between how teams configured promotions and how the system ultimately interpreted those rules.

Operational feedback and internal metrics revealed recurring issues with promotion configuration and campaign management.

Campaigns frequently required corrections after launch, and teams relied heavily on QA validation to ensure rules behaved as expected.

Configuration issues were rarely caused by system failures. Instead, teams lacked confidence that promotions had been configured correctly before launch.

To understand the root causes behind these signals, the system was analysed from three perspectives: ecosystem context, configuration architecture, and operational workflows.

Understanding the incentive ecosystem.

Promotions were part of a broader ecosystem connecting multiple gaming products, operational teams, and platform services.

The Bonus Engine acted as the central orchestration layer coordinating incentives across the platform.

System insight.

The Bonus Engine sits at the centre of a complex ecosystem connecting multiple products, operational teams, and platform services.

Configuration decisions made within the engine directly influence player experiences, operational workflows, and compliance outcomes.

Deconstructing the configuration architecture.

The promotion setup interface was deconstructed into its underlying rule architecture.

Promotions required defining multiple interdependent parameters including mechanics, segmentation rules, deposit conditions, reward structures, and campaign timing.

Insight.

Hidden rule dependencies increased cognitive load and led to configuration errors.

Understanding the operational lifecycle.

Promotions were not static configurations but part of an operational lifecycle involving campaign launch, monitoring, investigation, and support.

Insight.

Limited visibility into promotion behaviour created operational friction and manual investigation.

Following the discovery phase, we facilitated a cross-functional workshop with product, engineering, operations, and compliance teams to define what success would look like for the redesigned system.

Addressing these challenges required improving configuration clarity, introducing better validation mechanisms, and supporting the full operational lifecycle of promotions.

Three outcome areas were identified.

Strategic direction.

The solution focused on three core improvements to the promotion configuration experience: introducing a structured configuration flow, surfacing rule dependencies and system logic, and enabling teams to confidently validate promotions before launch.

Together, these changes aimed to reduce configuration errors, improve operational visibility, and increase confidence for the teams responsible for managing promotions.

Discovery showed that promotion configuration was difficult to understand because rule dependencies were hidden, configuration decisions were scattered across a large form, and validation relied heavily on manual QA.

The redesign focused on making system behaviour visible while guiding teams through a structured configuration workflow.

Campaign overview.

Promotion management begins in the Operational dashboard, where teams can view active and scheduled campaigns.

A card-based layout surfaces key campaign details such as reward type, status, and activation windows, making promotions easier to scan.

The interface was designed to support rapid scanning rather than deep data inspection.

Dashboard layout direction.

During exploration, both card and list layouts were considered. Cards provided clearer visual hierarchy, while a list view offered a more compact table format for managing large numbers of campaigns.

The card layout became the primary experience, with a list view toggle planned for future iterations.

Card layout direction + list view

Discovery revealed that many dependencies between configuration fields were hidden, making promotion behaviour difficult to predict.

To address this, validation behaviour was mapped using a validation logic matrix, defining how the system should respond to rule conflicts, missing dependencies, and risky configurations.

Instead of a single dense form, the new experience guides teams through the key stages of promotion setup such as eligibility conditions, deposit requirements, reward configuration, and wagering rules.

This structure reduces cognitive load by allowing teams to focus on one decision at a time.

Dynamic reward configuration.

The rewards section adapts dynamically based on inputs defined earlier in the configuration process.

Selections such as reward type, eligibility rules, and deposit conditions automatically adjust the available reward parameters.

Preventative safeguards.

To prevent configuration errors.

The interface disables incompatible options and hides fields that are not relevant to the selected promotion type.

Advisory feedback.

Where configurations may introduce risk.

The system provides warning messages highlighting potential issues without blocking progress.

This allows teams to understand rule conflicts while maintaining flexibility.

Confident validation.

Before activating a campaign.

Teams review the full promotion configuration in a structured confirmation layer.

The validation screen displays key promotion details including eligibility rules, reward structure, deposit conditions, wagering requirements, and campaign timing.

The redesign introduced several structural changes to how promotions were configured and validated. Each design decision directly addressed issues uncovered during discovery.

Mapping key discovery insights to design decisions and measurable improvements in promotion configuration.

The redesigned configuration experience improved both usability and operational efficiency across the teams responsible for managing promotions.

Impact

The redesigned configuration experience improved both usability and operational efficiency across the teams responsible for managing promotions.

Improvements were measured against the success metrics defined during the discovery workshop.

Improving clarity and reducing cognitive load during promotion setup was a key objective of the redesign.

These improvements reflected the impact of the structured configuration flow, clearer rule dependencies, and dynamic configuration behaviour.

The redesign also reduced the operational overhead required to create and manage promotions.

By preventing configuration errors earlier in the workflow, teams were able to launch campaigns with greater confidence and fewer manual interventions.

Because promotions control financial incentives, improving governance and reducing configuration risk was critical.

The introduction of validation logic and confirmation layers helped ensure that promotions were configured correctly before going live.

By making promotion logic visible and guiding teams through a structured configuration workflow, the redesign transformed promotion setup from a complex, error-prone process into a predictable system teams could confidently operate.