The BMO VIPorter Mastercard

Summary

In 2025, Porter Airlines announced their partnership with Bank of Montreal and Mastercard to introduce their new BMO VIPorter Mastercard and BMO VIPorter World Elite Mastercard. As the main Product Designer on the project, I led the UX/UI efforts, designing web-based experiences and advising on email and mobile touchpoints.

I conducted competitive analysis, wireframing, usability and accessibility testing, and collaborated closely with cross-functional teams across Porter Airlines and BMO to ensure a seamless, user-friendly sign-up process. I managed stakeholder presentations, navigating legal constraints, and worked with developers to balance design ambition with technical feasibility—ultimately contributing to a successful product launch and strong user engagement.

Role

Main Product Designer

Employer

Porter Airlines

Partners

Bank of Montreal &
Mastercard

Project background

The BMO VIPorter Mastercard was designed as a co-branded credit card that allows members to earn points through everyday spending. It aimed to enhance member engagement, integrate seamlessly with existing platforms and introduce advanced features and new functionalities. As the lead designer, I played a key role in overseeing web-based touch points, served as an advisor on email and mobile app touch points, and led all stakeholder presentations to align on objectives and outcomes in relation to design.

Key Processes

  • Competitive analysis
  • Internal audit
  • Wireframing
  • Usability testing
  • Accessibility testing
  • User interface design
  • Responsive design
  • Metrics tracking

Deliverables

  • 2 new promotional webpages
  • 4 new operational flows
  • 3 updated designs to existing pages/flows

Objectives that proioritize the user

Our given task was to promote the new credit card through our multiple channels and create Porter’s side of the sign up flow. Keeping in mind the complexity of the task we prioritized our users while coming up with our design objectives. Our objective was to create a seamless, user-friendly sign-up and onboarding experience. This required a well-researched and intuitive design approach to ensure a frictionless user journey.

Aligning with stakeholders

Collaboration was key when tackling such a large project with many key players throughout the different project partners. I worked with multiple teams, including business analysts, our Vice President, loyalty teams, developers, legal, marketing, and BMO to ensured a cohesive and strategic approach to product development.

My design process began with an internal audit and competitor research to understand market positioning and user expectations. Working closely with our UX researcher, we analyzed market data to inform our strategy. Based on our research and data I drafted low fidelity wireframes to present to stakeholders. After incorporating their feedback, I collaborated with our Senior UI Designer to create high fidelity prototypes. Throughout the process, I also worked closely with the BMO design team to ensure a cohesive end-to-end experience across all platforms.

Testing to optimize clarity

As part of the project, the sign up flow involved the user navigating back and forth between the Porter and BMO domains. Due to the complexity of the flow, testing was a necessity to ensure a smooth user experience. I conducted four rounds of unmoderated usability testing, including two rounds of A/B tests. These tests provided insights into how our users understood banking jargon, navigated between Porter and BMO sites, and engaged with different page layouts. The findings informed iterative improvements to optimize clarity and ease of use.

Always keeping accessibility in mind

To ensure an inclusive experience, I also performed two rounds of moderated accessibility testing. Working with our accessibility specialist, we compiled annotations for developers to ensured that all accessibility standards were met on web. Special attention was given to complex features and animations to ensure they were fully accessible to all users.

A great success

The launch of the BMO VIPorter Mastercard and BMO VIPorter World Elite Mastercard was a success, with a strong number of sign-ups from the waitlist and record breaking numbers from the official launch. The seamless digital experience contributed to high user engagement and an effective onboarding process, reinforcing the value of a well-executed UX/UI strategy.

Tracking metrics and iterating to improve

After launch, I worked closely with marketing and engineering to optimize the performance of our designs. We experimented with different ad banner placements and messaging variations to improve conversion, which required thoughtful planning around data collection and analysis. As part of this process, I deepened my understanding of Google Analytics, collaborated with cross-functional teams to implement the necessary tracking, and drafted a comprehensive proposal outlining the key metrics we needed to measure success. This post-launch experimentation intended to strengthen the product and expanded my skills in data-driven design and cross-team collaboration.

Learnings & challenges

Throughout the project, I overcame challenges daily. Navigating bank jargon and legal constraints required careful consideration in the design approach. Legal considerations resulted in many additional approval processes. On the design side, it was a challenge to fit all the trademarks and superscripts that came in much later into the already created design.

The crossover between web and email experiences also highlighted the importance of close collaboration to maintain consistency in design and messaging across all touchpoints. With multiple secondary designers contributing to different aspects of the project, improved communication and structured file handoffs would have streamlined workflows and ensured greater consistency throughout the design process.

Another huge issue we encountered was the marketing page’s animations. Once the design hit the development stage, it proved to be more difficult than anticipated to execute. To be able to meet release deadlines I learned more about how to work with technical and time constraints. I found it immensely helpful speaking with developers and learning about their process, which allowed me to better triage design requirements. In the end, we created a good consumer facing animation, with plans for refinement in the future.

Overall, I personally grew a ton from this year-and-a-half long project. It has challenged and developed not just my design skills, but my organizational and interpersonal soft skills as well. This was an invaluable project that I am so happy to have worked on and I now feel all the more equipped to tackle larger-scale, cross-functional design projects in the future.