Woolworths • Bunch
Helping shape the future of a food community through continuous product evolution.
- Role
Creative Designer
- Year
2024 - Present
- Deliverables
Website
Visual design
Developer Handoff
Overview
Bunch is Woolworths' members-only online food community, with approximately 100,000 members who discover recipes, review products, receive free samples and connect with fellow food lovers.
Unlike designing a product from scratch, working on Bunch meant designing for an evolving platform with an active community and an established user base. Across two years, I contributed to dozens of product improvements, community initiatives and future concepts that helped make Bunch more engaging, easier to use and better connected to the wider Woolworths ecosystem.
Rather than focusing on one large redesign, this project became an exercise in continuous product evolution: using small, intentional improvements to create meaningful change over time.
Impact At A Glance
Increased engagement
Increased average session duration from ~1 minute to ~3 minutes by redesigning the sample claim journey into a content discovery experience.
Improved operational efficiency
Saved moderators an estimated 2–3 hours per week by reducing repetitive questions, while helping members find important information immediately at the top of each discussion.
Continuous product evolution
Contributed numerous shipped improvements, seasonal campaigns and community initiatives across a live product over two years.
Long-term product vision
Developed future concepts that reposition Bunch from a community website into a personalised cooking companion integrated with the Woolworths ecosystem.
The Opportunity
As the community continued to grow, new features and campaigns were added regularly.
While this kept the platform active, it also introduced opportunities to improve engagement, simplify common tasks and better connect the different parts of the experience.
My work naturally evolved into two streams:
- Improving today's experience through shipped product improvements.
- Designing tomorrow's experience by exploring the future direction of Bunch.
Part 01
Improving Today's Experience
Many of the most valuable improvements weren't large redesigns.
They were carefully placed interventions at key moments of the user journey that encouraged engagement, reduced friction and made the platform easier to manage.
1. Increasing Engagement Beyond Sample Claims
The Opportunity
Many members visited Bunch with a single goal, to claim a free product sample.
Once the sample had been claimed, there was little reason to continue exploring the community, resulting in very short sessions and limited exposure to recipes, articles and discussions.
The Solution
After a successful claim, the confirmation experience was redesigned into an opportunity for discovery.
The new pop-up surfaced related recipes, articles and community content while the member was already engaged, encouraging them to continue exploring rather than immediately leaving the platform.
The Impact
Average session duration increased from approximately one minute to three minutes, representing a significant improvement in post-claim engagement.
A small UX intervention at a critical moment in the journey resulted in a substantial increase in time spent on the platform.
2. Reducing Moderator Work Through Better Communication
The Challenge
Moderators regularly answered the same questions beneath product posts and community discussions.
Important information quickly became buried within long comment threads, making it difficult for members to find answers and creating unnecessary repetitive work for the moderation team.
The Solution
I designed pinned moderator comments, allowing key announcements, instructions and FAQs to remain permanently visible at the top of discussions.
This ensured members saw important information immediately without searching through lengthy conversations.
The Impact
Moderators no longer needed to repeatedly respond to the same questions across active discussions.
The feature improved both sides of the experience, saving approximately 2-3 hours per week across community teams while creating a clearer experience for the community.
3. Keeping The Community Active
Alongside larger product improvements, I designed a series of initiatives that encouraged members to return regularly, contribute content and celebrate their involvement in the community.
These initiatives included achievement badges, gifting experiences, seasonal profile avatars, event entry forms, refreshed email experiences and community competitions.
While each initiative served a different purpose, together they contributed to a product that felt more engaging, more current and more rewarding to return to.
Part 02
Designing the Future of Bunch
As the platform continued growing, I began exploring a larger question:
How could Bunch evolve beyond a traditional online community into a personalised cooking companion?
Rethinking the overall product experience, I explored how the entire member journey could become more connected, more personalised and more useful.
1. From Content Feed To Personal Dashboard
Before
The existing homepage primarily functioned as a chronological content feed.
After
The redesigned dashboard instead adapts to each member's goals by surfacing personalised recommendations, pending reviews, popular discussions, community achievements, cooking inspiration, etc.
2. Connecting Community And Shopping
One opportunity became increasingly clear throughout the redesign process: Members regularly discovered recipes on Bunch before manually searching for ingredients on Woolworths.
The proposed shopping experience closes this gap by allowing recipes to flow directly into the Woolworths shopping cart, creating a seamless journey from inspiration to purchase.
3. A Roadmap For The Future
These concepts were organised into four strategic product pillars. Together these initiatives establish a long-term vision that extends Bunch beyond a traditional online community into a more connected ecosystem centred around food, cooking and shared experiences.
Reflection
Success wasn't defined by launching one standout feature, but by continuously improving the product through hundreds of thoughtful decisions that made the experience more engaging, intuitive and valuable over time.
The biggest lesson I took away from Bunch is that great products rarely change overnight. They evolve through thoughtful iteration, measurable outcomes and a clear vision of where they're headed.
Next Projects
