Hero image of the over-the-counter experience
OVERVIEW

Designing a new digital Over-the-Counter experience, enabling home delivery services for essential health products

An over-the-counter (OTC) digital ordering experience was designed to impact an initial 6 million members of the pharmacy, providing access to health products without the need for a prescription. The effort expanded the pharmacy's digital service and capabilities, generating a new line of revenue and competitive edge for the business. For members of the pharmacy, it enabled discovery and access to essential non-prescription health products, promoting proactive healthcare management.

  • MY ROLE: As lead designer, I collaborated with partners across Business, Product, and Engineering, as well as key discipline teams including Content, Accessibility, and Analytics to drive design strategy and facilitate weekly reviews for product vision alignment and delivery.
  • PROJECT TIMELINE: 3 months
  • SKILLS APPLIED: UX strategy, UI and Interaction design

What customers couldn't find

Home delivery was the digital pharmacy's core service, and it had been for as long as the business started. It was a service and system that was well-established, allowing existing members to effectively order and manage their prescriptions. However, there was a gap. The option to order non-prescription health products or over-the-counter (OTC) products for home delivery was non-existing, prolonging a gap for people to fall through.

"I signed into my account. I got to view my scripts, however I wanted to check what was available for OTC items through the website. I could not see where to go from here."

Picture a retail pharmacy

Typically, in a retail setting, prescriptions are checked out at a counter with a pharmacist or technician. Nearby are aisles and shelves that offer OTC products like pain relief, allergy and cold medicine. And while competitors and popular online stores had a digital equivalent of this experience, our enterprise pharmacy focused solely on prescriptions. To close the gap and reach market parity, the business committed to a patient-first investment that aimed to expand digital access to OTCs.

Image of over-the-counter products at a physical retail pharmacy

Plans for a scalable digital experience

As lead designer, my role entailed driving the new end-to-end minimum viable experience that would allow members to browse and purchase 40 products across five categories for home delivery. With no dedicated funding for research, I leveraged other tools and methods that could inform my design strategy to ensure delivering effective solutions. My plan included reviewing competitors to identify common patterns, setting clear design goals based on analysis, socializing a flexible UX vision through visual concepts and flows, and collaborating closely with cross-functional partners through weekly design reviews to align on what we'd introduce and deliver to 6 million initial users.

Image of competitor analysis of online shopping experiences across Amazon, Walgreens, CostCo, Walmart, and Cvs
Competitor analysis across major retail sites like Amazon, Walgreens, Costco, Walmart, and CVS
Product flow to align cross-functional partners on a vision of a new OTC experience
Product flow to align cross-functional partners on a vision of a new OTC experience
Early concepts, blockframes, and key journey touchpoints
Early concepts, blockframes, and key journey touchpoints

Predictable patterns

My design process was guided by three key goals and questions from start to finish, leveraging online shopping conventions that have highly likely set customer mental models.

  1. Discoverability: How might we promote a new over-the-counter feature to ensure people discover and engage with it?
  2. Familiarity: How might we craft a new end-to-end experience that is intuitive and predictable so that people can effortlessly explore the feature?
  3. Scalability: How might we design an experience that can be flexible to allow building more products and capabilities over time?
A 0-to-1 new Over-the-Counter product flow integrated into the digital pharmacy service
A 0-to-1 new Over-the-Counter product flow integrated into the digital pharmacy service

Key product touchpoints

Exploring patterns and possibilities led me to define and socialize the key product touchpoints that would become the scalable building blocks of the digital OTC experience. It would be a new flow, integrated into the existing digital pharmacy service enabling people to order prescriptions and over-the-counter products together.

  1. Dashboard entry point: act as the front entry to discover OTC content
  2. Catalog: serve as a landing page to introduce a suite of products for users to browse and get started from
  3. Category pages: group similar types of products to help organize information to enable easy search, navigation, and discoverability
  4. Product Details page: available for every OTC product item in order to give users more information and calls to action to place an order

Home delivery services expanded for essential over-the-counter health products

  • Built a scalable experience that laid a foundation for expanded pharmacy services, enabling users to proactively manage their health through easy access to non-prescription products
  • Delivered convenience for 6 million customers by introducing a reliable, time-saving way to order essential healthcare items for home delivery
  • Drove new revenue and business competitiveness by designing a 0-1 new shopping flow that was intuitive, discoverable, and built for scale
  • Standout recognition for my contributions from a Pharmacy Business Executive:
"Congratulations and thank you for being an integral part in an outstanding execution and successful launch of the new Over-the-Counter (OTC) program! Your hard work and exceptional collaboration made this achievement possible. This initiative represents a significant step forward in expanding our capabilities and bringing value to our members. This achievement is a testament to what we can do together and sets a foundation for continued innovation and impact. Thank you!"

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