A game played by
200,000 Canadians.
Designing the flow, interactions, and game mechanics for Food Network Canada's sweepstakes promotion — a daily entry game celebrating Canada's 150th birthday and the launch of the Great Canadian Cookbook.
Fun UX with serious business rules underneath
To celebrate Canada's 150th birthday, Food Network Canada launched the Great Canadian Cookbook. The promotional campaign included a sweepstakes game — users earn entries to win prizes every time they play, driving daily return visits over a 6-month promotion.
What looked like a simple game had complex logic underneath: entry limits, prize tiers, eligibility rules, daily resets, and social sharing mechanics — all dictated by legal and advertising requirements. My job was to make all of that invisible to users while keeping the experience genuinely fun.
Architecting the rules of the game
Before wireframing a single screen, I worked with engineering, business analysts, legal, and the advertising agency to map out every possible user state — first visit, returning user, daily limit reached, prize won, referral entry. The flow diagram became the source of truth for the entire team.
From flow to screens
With the game logic locked, I moved into wireframes and interactive prototypes — collaborating closely with the visual designer and creative director to make sure the UX and visual identity worked together. The game needed to feel celebratory and light while handling edge cases gracefully.
200,000 Canadians played the game.
When the design work is making complexity disappear
This project was a good reminder that UX isn't always about solving a usability problem — sometimes it's about absorbing business and legal complexity so users never have to see it. The better the architecture, the simpler the experience feels.
Collaborating across engineering, creative, legal, and an external advertising agency — all with different priorities — was the real design challenge. Getting everyone to a shared understanding of the game logic before a single screen was drawn made everything downstream faster.