Our customers are often unsure of what fields to include on their digital membership cards. This guide is based on the patterns we see while working with customers, and the changes they often make to their cards after they are issued!
Fundamentally, the right fields depend on what you want your digital membership card to do. It might help staff identify a member, keep a member aware of unused credits, or present your organisation beautifully whenever the card appears in a wallet.
Those goals lead to different priorities. A card used mainly for access needs a scannable code and a clear identifier. A card for a credit-pack business might put remaining credits in a prominent position to remind members to come back. A card for a private club might give more space to the brand and membership tier.
Let the card’s goal inform its header field
Start by deciding what the card needs to achieve. Most cards have one primary purpose.
For access or validating membership, prioritise the member's name, and a readable short member number or ID. Include a QR or barcode to scan the card and bring up the member's record quickly or integrate with access control systems. Staff should be able to scan the card or look up the member quickly. Depending on your membership structure, an expiry date might also be useful.
For membership with credit packs, consider making the remaining balance most prominent. This could be remaining class credits, points or guest passes. In Apple Wallets, the top header strip of the card is visible in the card stack, making it a great way to remind users they have remaining credit is a great way to build repeat business. You can move the ID field or use only the barcode to keep check-in functionality.
For brand and belonging, use a strong logo, colour palette, imagery, and a concise membership or tier label. A well-designed card can reinforce the quality of your organisation every time a member opens their wallet. For a clean, minimalist look, you might not even need a header field.
You can combine these purposes, but choose one as the card’s main job. That decision should determine the header or primary field.
Understand the card layouts
Fields do not look the same in every wallet or device. Apple and Google have predefined layouts for their cards, which can be unpredictably rendered.
Apple Wallet layouts
Apple Wallet card designs use different preset layouts, which have different purposes, field counts, and spacing.
Fields are often truncated when a layout has limited room or on narrow screens. Put the most important value first, keep labels short, and check the finished card rather than assuming every configured field will have equal prominence.
For membership cards, we suggest using either a store card layout, which gives the card a prominent central image strip, or a generic layout, which can include a small thumbnail image alongside the card’s information.
Google Wallet layouts
Google Wallet cards are more constrained: information is generally presented as a vertical stack of rows. A row can contain multiple short values, but the design does not offer the same visual hierarchy as an Apple Wallet card.
This makes concise labels and short values especially important. Do not design an Apple Wallet card and assume it will translate one-for-one to Google Wallet. Put essential information early and test both versions on a real phone.
How many fields should you include?
For most cards, around four visible information fields is a safe upper limit before the design starts to feel crowded and truncated on smaller screens. This is a guideline, not a technical limit. Apple Wallet layouts support many secondary and auxilary fields, but will truncate fields, while Google Wallet may present them as a long vertical stack.
The exception is a few very short values that naturally belong together without taking space: a season member's stand, row, and seat, for example, or a locker number such as “B22”.
One clever trick if you are short on space is to use a field label as a value. For example, the REI card below displays the membership tier in the label slot for the member name, instead of using a separate field. We don't generally recommend this because it can make the rest of the card confusing if following a different pattern, but when you only have one field, it can be a useful approach:
In Members, a design can use a header and primary field plus up to eight secondary fields. That is the available capacity, not a recommendation to use every slot.
What should you include?
Use each field for a clear job. The best location depends on how important the value is and who needs to read it.
| Field or element | Good for | Recommended treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Member name | Visual identification | Use as a primary or secondary field so staff and members can recognise the card quickly. |
| Member ID or short ID | Manual lookup and support | Use prominently when staff need it. If the ID is long, put it in the barcode instead and show a shorter fallback. |
| Barcode or QR code | Check-in and access | Choose the format your reader supports. Add it only when scanning is part of the workflow. |
| Membership tier or plan | Recognition and access context | Use a short label or a tier-specific design when it changes the member experience. |
| Credits, points, or benefits | Member engagement | Use a live value in the header or primary field when the goal is to encourage another visit. |
| Expiry or valid-through date | Time-limited access | Include it only when your system will update the card automatically after renewal. |
| Seat, row, or dock | Short, location-specific information | Include a few compact values that staff or members need together. |
Card designs in Members can use built-in profile fields such as name, member ID, short ID, and external ID, as well as custom profile fields and live benefit entitlements.
Choose the right barcode format
If the card will be scanned, identify the reader or check-in system before choosing a barcode format. Compatibility is easier to get right at the start than to fix after cards have been issued.
Use a stable, non-sensitive value in the code. A long member ID may be useful there even when it is too unwieldy to display as text. Alternatively, you could encode a URL that links directly to the member's profile page. Members supports QR, PDF417, Aztec, Code 128, and Code 39 barcodes; see the membership cards guide for the available options.
Use dynamic fields sparingly
A changing value is most useful when it affects what a member does next. Remaining credits can prompt a member to book another class. A points balance can encourage a redemption. In Members, you can bind card fields to live benefit entitlements so values update as members earn or use them.
Note there is often a lag to update cards in the wallet, and the functionality can be disabled by the user. You should never rely on dynamic fields for critical information, such as expiry dates or membership status
Only show an expiry date if the system will update the card when the member renews or changes their plan. A stale date can create unnecessary support work and undermine confidence in the card.
What should you leave out?
Less information usually makes a better card. Avoid:
- Long IDs as visible text. Put the full value in a barcode and show a shorter human-friendly identifier on the card.
- Personal data. Do not expose addresses, dates of birth, payment details, or sensitive notes on a card that could be lost or seen by someone else.
- A barcode you do not use. It adds visual weight and can imply a check-in workflow that does not exist.
- A member photo. Photos are possible, but Google Wallet will render the image full width rather than a small inset thumbnail. This can throw the design out of balance, because the Member's picture will take the same amount of space as the rest of the card. Members handles this by adding whitespace around the member image when generating the card, but this is not an ideal approach.
- Fields that need explanation. If a label takes a sentence to understand, it belongs in the member portal or member record instead.
Make the card beautiful
Once the hierarchy is right, make the card feel like it belongs to your organisation. Use brand colours with enough contrast, a recognisable logo, and imagery that supports the membership experience rather than competing with the fields.
For Apple Wallet, consider the strip-image layout when a wide image or visual theme is part of the brand. A club might use a distinctive venue image; a seasonal programme might use artwork that changes with the season. Keep the image simple enough that the card’s essential information remains easy to read.
Use tier-specific designs when they communicate a real difference in membership. A premium card can feel distinctive without hiding the barcode, name, or other information staff need.
A final checklist
Before issuing a digital membership card, check that you have:
- Chosen the card’s primary goal: access, engagement, or brand.
- Selected a layout that works in the wallet your members use.
- Kept the visible field count to around four unless short values naturally group together.
- Chosen a barcode format compatible with the reader or check-in system.
- Used live values only when they will update reliably.
- Removed long visible IDs and unnecessary personal data.
- Tested the finished card in both Apple Wallet and Google Wallet on a variety of real devices.
- Applied your brand colours and imagery without compromising readability.
The best digital membership card is useful first, memorable second, and never more complicated than it needs to be. For implementation details, see the digital membership cards documentation or book a demo to discuss your member workflow.
