UX DESIGN & IMPLEMENTATION
FoodCourt — Christmas Advent Calendar
COMPANY
FoodCourt
ROLE
Product Designer
EXPERTISE
Product Design
YEAR
2025
Overview
As Christmas approached, the FoodCourt marketing team came up with a concept to reward users across the 25 days of Christmas, a hidden gift every day, unlocked directly inside the app. I was handed the concept and owned the entire design end-to-end, solo. No existing template, no reference UI. Just a brief and a deadline.
The Feature
Every day of Christmas, users open the FoodCourt app to a modal notifying them that a new reward is available for that day. A countdown timer, hours, minutes, seconds, shows exactly how long they have left to claim it before the box locks again.
The core experience is a 25-box advent calendar grid, each box dressed in Christmas-themed illustration and decoration. The grid has three distinct states that do a lot of the design work:
Past dates are grayed out with a visual treatment to signal they've closed, the moment has passed
Future dates carry a padlock, clear and honest, not yet yours
Today's box glows. I added a visual highlight around the current day's box specifically to create that moment of recognition, this one is for you, right now, open it
Tapping today's box triggers a modal revealing the gift: a free delivery or a discount from a specific restaurant. Redeeming it sends the gift to the user's email, and a "Tap to Order Now" CTA pulls them straight into the ordering flow.
What I Cared About
The three box states were the core design problem. Getting them right meant the whole calendar communicated instantly without any instruction — past, locked, available. The glow on the current day's box was my call. It needed to feel special, like something worth tapping, not just another UI element.
The Christmas visual direction, themed boxes, decorations, warm seasonal aesthetic, had to feel intentional inside the FoodCourt app without clashing with the existing product language. That balance took iteration.
What Shipped
The feature launched in December and reached real users across the FoodCourt app. A friend reached out to tell me they had been opening the app early every morning, right after the countdown reset, just to see what gift was waiting in the new box. That was the moment I knew the design had done its job. Not just a feature users noticed, but one they built a small daily ritual around.
