5 min readFeb 22, 2021

CVS — UI/UX case of the Check Store Availability feature.

Organization

CVS

Project date/duration

Summer 2018 Duration: 4 months

My role

As the Design Lead, I oversaw the planning, strategy and contributed to prototypes & final designs. I directed my three direct UX reports and two in-house full-stack developers to complete the project.

Project Summary

Check Store availability was a project to develop a feature that would allow users to get a real-time snapshot of the inventory levels of products offered online and in-store. The age 35–55 demographic accounts for 39% of CVS customers, a feature that would positively affect over 9000 stores nationwide and on the backend become an additional resource for the Buying and Allocations team.

Pain Points

Traveling is an inconvenience, so shopping is planned accordingly
Wants to buy essentials in-store rather than online
Time is a factor, and I can’t afford to waste it going to multiple stores
The when and where to find the things you need wherever you are
Inconsistency between sales channels

The Challenge

There were two main challenges for this project. The first was to create a strategy that would ensure the functionality would significantly impact the overall business. The design had to be clean and easy to use as the minority demographic identified in our research was the 55+ group. Check store availability required buy-in from several different areas of the company. To launch this feature, our Buying & Allocations teams and the Retail team had to collaborate effectively. To do this meant creating a plan with enough padding to allow feedback from all involved while still making our deadline. The second challenge was collaborating with engineers who handled our warehouse inventory system and the retail inventory system. We would need to integrate both the warehouse and retail inventory systems with our e-commerce site.

The Solution

Center user feedback end-to-end
Map out a project plan that would allow for high-level collaboration
Create a strategy centered around the development process
Schedule multiple rounds of testing to ensure the best outcomes
Center feedback and concerns from the other departments involved

User Flow

Unknown customers who are not signed in.

Personas

The user persona created describes users representing the most significant demographic affected by the problem we are designing this feature to solve. They are both independent and have experience with technology though there are apparent differences in proficiency levels. Both personas prioritize time and prefer in-store interactions. They both use technology as a part of their communications with friends and family. We found that they will shop online for things they don’t mind waiting for but prefer to go out and buy essentials.

Research

I discovered that CVS’s Facebook page’s comments section doubled as a customer service line. After reading through comments under several posts, I noticed many comments unrelated to the posts. I began taking note of these comments and presenting them to the research team. The research team began combing the page and synthesizing all of the data they found. When reviewing this data, I noticed a large number of users who shared a common complaint. “If I don’t want to order something online, then how do I know if it’s available in my local store?” to paraphrase it. Looking into the profiles of some of these commenters, I began to notice another common thread. The majority of these customers fell into our 35–55 demographic, with some falling into the 55+ bracket. We learned that it was essential to the design that we utilized vital metrics to evaluate our assumptions and strategies. These steps were critical as the process allowed us to analyze the impact of the feature.

Usability test results

We tested the Check store availability with a small number of users who related to the problem we were trying to solve. When testing, we discovered that many users didn’t actively sign into their CVS accounts. The lack of sign-in posed a problem because the user had to sign in and select a “My CVS Store” location. This unexpected finding forced us to rethink how the feature early design. Incorporating Geo-location and giving users the option to enter an address or zip code changed the way users would interact with the feature. On the second round of testing, users were pleased with the changes and excited to utilize the function when it launched.