Sportmaster mobile app

2022–2024 · Senior Designer

From 2022 to 2024 I was responsible for the design of Sportmaster’s corporate app for store and warehouse employees. The app brings together in one place everything that used to live in email, in Excel and on paper at the shift supervisor.

What’s in the app

Shifts
Open and close a shift in one tap, with no paper log at the shift supervisor.
Schedule
Your shifts and swaps with colleagues for the next 14 days.
Time off and sick leave
Request straight from the app, with approval status visible inside.
Company news
What used to go to email and get lost in the shift group chat.
Gift cards
Partner certificates — Adidas, ASICS, Nike — in digital form. More on this below.

Next — a case about the gift cards section. It was the most painful module at the start of the project: partner certificates arrived on paper, sat in the back room, and expired before activation. The screens below are from this section.

How it was

Sportmaster’s partners — Adidas, ASICS, Nike — issued gift certificates for employees: for the New Year, for anniversaries, for collection launches. The certificates arrived at the store as a stack of paper. The shift supervisor handed them out by hand, by list, with a signature in the log. Some cards got lost in the back room. Some reached the employee after the activation date and expired.

"Move the partner card handout into the app. So that an employee sees their card, its deadline and its terms — without the supervisor and without paper."
— brief from the HR director, February 2023

The metric we started with

~12%
of gift cards expired before activation
4–6 min
to hand out one card through the shift supervisor

Hypothesis

If we move the cards into the app and tie the barcode directly to the employee’s account, the card reaches them the moment it is issued, without getting stuck in a line to the supervisor. Deadlines and terms will live on the card itself, not in a PDF on the portal.

Principles

Four rules by which decisions on the gift cards section were made.

No paper allowed
The card exists only in digital form. No certificates from the printer and no signatures in the shift supervisor’s log.
One tap to the barcode
From the home screen to a scannable barcode — two screens. The partner cashier should not wait while the employee digs for a card in their email.
Activation deadline — on the card
The deadline is visible right on the front of the card. Not in a PDF on the portal, not in an email from HR.
The sales floor has poor signal
The barcode of the last opened card is cached on the device. If the connection drops, the card still shows.

What I verified

Before the mockups — 14 interviews with sales consultants in six stores across Moscow and the surrounding region, plus analytics on card handouts for 2022.

Cards expired before activation
In 4 out of 10 stores employees received their paper certificate after the activation deadline. For 2023 — about 12% of cards expired.
A line to the shift supervisor
Partner cards were handed out through the supervisor: walk up, wait, sign, take the paper. At peak — 4–6 minutes per employee.
Terms were handed out separately
Limits, deadlines, store restrictions — in a PDF on the corporate portal. It only reached the floor through the supervisor’s retelling.

The solution

The gift cards section lives inside the employee’s main menu. The entry point to the cards sits right on the profile, between "Work calendar" and "Contacts". A partner card is tied to the account the moment it is issued and appears for the employee instantly.

01 — Entry point
Cards — one tap from the profile

On the employee’s home screen — a photo, full name, role and three quick buttons. Gift cards are second in line, right under the work calendar. Not in a menu, not in "Services", not in a tray. One tap — and the employee is on the list of their cards: each in the brand’s own design, and at the top a short rule about the activation deadline that can’t be missed.

Profile with quick access to gift cards List of gift cards with rules and deadlines
02 — Card list
A partner card — like a card in a wallet

Each card is shown in the brand’s own design, with its value and activation deadline on the front. The type — kids’ or adult — sits right under the name. A paper certificate is no longer needed.

03 — Card details
Number, PIN code and the barcode button

On the card — the certificate number, the card type and a hidden PIN code that opens with a tap on "show". The main action is a large "Show barcode" button. No extra fields or forms: everything the partner cashier needs is on one screen.

Card details with number and PIN code Barcode tray for the cashier
04 — Barcode
A tray with the code over the card

The barcode slides up as a tray from the bottom — you can show it to the cashier without leaving the app. The tray survives a screen lock: no repeat SSO is needed to show it again.

05 — Rules and deadlines
Terms — where people look for them

Activation deadlines, store restrictions, limits per child, a link to HR email for disputed cases — inside the card, not in a separate PDF on the corporate portal.

Terms and activation deadlines inside the card Lost connection scenario
06 — Offline
If the connection drops, the card still works

On the sales floor the connection is worse than in the office. The barcode of the last opened card is cached on the device. If something doesn’t load, the app honestly says "try again" instead of showing a white screen.

Why it worked

Before, the path to a gift card was four steps involving another person: walk up to the supervisor, wait in line, sign, take the paper. Now — two taps on the phone. This isn’t an "interface improvement", it’s a shift of responsibility from the manager back to the employee.

<1%
of cards expired after moving into the app
−5 min
average time to hand a card to an employee

Some details and metrics are not disclosed due to an NDA. The figures on expired cards and handout time are based on the project’s internal analytics.