Reforge · 2021
Turning a program completion celebration into a referral channel
Reforge runs live, multi-week programs for product and growth professionals. Finishing one is a real achievement, and members got a personalized card to share it on LinkedIn or Twitter. I redesigned that moment so members felt proud enough to post it, and the people who saw it understood why it mattered.
- My work
- Audit, experience and visual design, product and email copy, design handoff.
- Team
- Engineering built the changes. I worked with the PM on measurement.
- Shipped
- Fall 2021, extended to enrollment in 2022
Problem
A completion card that read like an activity report, and made people feel worse
Members spent four to six weeks working through a program alongside their jobs. The card they got at the end did not celebrate that. It led with activity counts: lessons completed, longest streak, events attended, posts written.
Everyone takes a program differently. Some members did the work but skipped live events or never posted in the community, so their card showed zeros. At the moment they should have felt proudest, the card told them they had come up short. Few people want to post that, and only a small share did.
The card failed the second audience too. Someone scrolling LinkedIn saw a grid of numbers with the program name in small type, and learned nothing about what their colleague had accomplished or why Reforge was worth a look.
The Spring 2021 card
Activity counts lead. Any gap in a member’s participation shows up as a low number or a zero.
Strategy
Celebrate the program, not the activity count
I framed the work around two people. The member who finished needs to feel recognized for the effort, without being graded on it. The person in their network needs enough context, in one glance and with no prior knowledge of Reforge, to understand the achievement and be curious about it.
That led to four principles for the redesign:
- Nothing that can be zero. Every element on the card is true for every member who finished.
- Lead with the achievement. The program name and “completed” come first, followed by what the member learned.
- Stand out in the feed. A bold, celebratory treatment that reads at mobile size.
- Meet members in the moment. Deliver the card while the pride of finishing is fresh, and keep it within reach afterwards.
The engineering budget was small, so the strategy put the effort where it would count: the card itself, where members find it, and when it reaches them.
Design process
From wireframes to a card members wanted to share
I started in wireframes to settle the hierarchy before any visual style: which statistics to replace or remove, and whether the card should lead with a headline or an eye-catching image.
Wireframes
The current card annotated with what to change, then two structures: simplify the content, or lead with an image that catches the eye in a feed.
From there I explored four directions, each testing a different reason to share: a bold celebratory visual, the program and the people in it, the skills gained, and an emotional message backed by the experts who taught the program.
Directional explorations
The previous design beside four directions: bold and celebratory, cohort details, skills, and an emotional message with expert social proof.
I took the strongest directions through two rounds of design critique. The feedback confirmed the core idea: remove anything that could show a zero, keep the message simple and emotional, and remember the card would be read by strangers with no other context. Showing the experts was strong social proof, and the team pushed for a bolder treatment, larger type for mobile, and the clearest content on the most eye-catching background.
The final card leads with the program name and “Program completed!”, lists what the member learned under “Expertise gained”, and closes with the scope of the program in lessons, weeks and hours. Those facts are the same for everyone who finished, so no member is shown a gap.
The Fall 2021 card
Completion and what the member learned lead, on a bold, celebratory background built to stand out in a feed.
Access
Make the card easy to find
The original card appeared once, the first time a member came back after finishing. If they dismissed it, it was effectively gone. I added a persistent “View + share” action next to each completed program on the home page and in the program viewer, so members could share whenever they were ready.
Home page
A “View + share” action sits next to the completed program, so the card is always one click away.
Lifecycle
Built into the end of every program
Sharing belongs to the moment of finishing, not weeks later. The first card arrived two weeks after a six-week program ended, when the momentum was gone. We made it available the week after programs ended and added it to the program’s closing communication.
I designed and wrote a completion email that opens with “Let’s celebrate!”, congratulates the member by name on the program they finished, and shows their card with one action to view and share it. We sent it on Tuesdays, when LinkedIn posts get the most engagement.
Completion email
The celebration arrives in the inbox with the member’s own card, one click from sharing.
Outcome
Three times the share rate, and each share reached five times as far
The Fall 2021 cohort was nearly twice the size of Spring, so the comparison that matters is per member. Against the previous card, members were three times as likely to share, and each member’s share drove almost five times the reach and traffic back to Reforge. The team’s December review put the cohort-adjusted improvement at ~380%.
| Measure | Before | After | Change per member |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cohort size | 3,251 | 5,992 | |
| Members who shared | 6.8% | 20.8% | 3.1× |
| Social impressions | 48,150 | 425,000 | 4.8× |
| Visits to Reforge | 963 | 8,500 | 4.8× |
| Applications | 19 | 193 | 5.5× |
| New members | 5 | 54 | 5.9× |
| New ARR | $10K | $105K | 5.5× |
One cohort’s cards produced 193 applications, 54 new members and $105K in new ARR. Across Reforge’s live cohorts, that is about $316K in new ARR a year, before counting members added to team plans after seeing a colleague’s post.
Applications rose with each card email
Weekly applications from shared cards after Fall 2021 programs ended.
The share rate rose as expected once the card was easy to find and free of zeros. The bigger gain came from reach and click-through. Posts that explained what the member had learned gave people outside Reforge a reason to react and to click, which carried each post further.
Extension
Enrollment cards and the Reforge rebrand
In 2022 we added a second sharing moment at the start of a program, so members could announce what they were about to take and invite peers to join. Before designing it, I reviewed how members already posted about joining Reforge. Their posts clustered around a few motivations: learning from experts, thanking an employer, signaling ambition, building a network and celebrating a next step.
When Reforge rebranded, I specified both cards in the new system: new type and color, program emblems, dynamic program content, and the member’s profile photo, with an emblem as the empty state for members without one.
Completion and enrollment cards in the rebrand
Anatomy and handoff specifications for both cards, each with a profile photo and an empty state.
Completion stayed the stronger moment: members shared an achievement they had finished more readily than a program they were about to start.