Case Study: Walgreens Pharmacy Renewal
Project Overview
- Project: Walgreens Pharmacy Renewal
- My Role: Lead Product Designer
- My Team: UX Designers, Creative Designers, UX Researchers, Software Engineers
- Primary Design Tools: Figma, Adobe Suite, InVision
Walgreens, founded in 1901 in Chicago, is a leading community pharmacy chain that expanded globally after merging with Alliance Boots in 2014, now operating over 18,500 stores across 11 countries.
However, its pharmacy operations relied on a 25-year-old legacy management and inventory system that hindered efficiency. The Pharmacy Renewal project aimed to replace this outdated system with a state-of-the-art platform to streamline workflows, enhance patient care, and provide a scalable foundation for future advancements. This initiative was critical to overcoming operational inefficiencies, reducing service delays, and improving customer satisfaction—challenges that were increasingly evident in an era demanding agility and seamless technology integration.
My Role
As the Lead Product Designer, I spearheaded the design strategy for the Pharmacy Renewal project, guiding a talented team of UX designers, creative designers, and UX researchers while collaborating closely with software engineers, stakeholders, and business analysts. With over 20 years of design experience, I shaped the project’s vision and execution, ensuring a user-centric, technically feasible outcome.
My key responsibilities included:
- Defining UI Standards and Design Language: Established the visual and functional foundation for the new pharmacy platform.
- Global Framework Development: Designed navigation systems, page layouts, app-switching mechanisms, and menu architecture.
- Dashboard and Landing Page Design: Created intuitive interfaces to provide quick access to critical tools and data.
- Design System Leadership: Led the creation and governance of a brand-new design system from scratch, ensuring consistency across teams.
- UI Toolkits and Standards: Developed development-ready toolkits and standardized data table patterns.
- Access and Security Design: Defined user session handling, roles, permissions, and access management protocols.
A standout moment was aligning diverse teams during the design system rollout. I facilitated workshops to unify engineers and designers under a shared vision, overcoming initial resistance and fostering collaboration, bridging design and development.
Project Team Members: UX Designers, Creative Designers, UX Researchers, Software Engineers, Stakeholders, Business Analysts
Tools & Technologies: Figma, Adobe Suite, InVision
The Challenge
The legacy pharmacy system posed significant obstacles, uncovered through extensive user research:
- Inefficient Workflows: Pharmacists navigated multiple disconnected systems, requiring excessive steps to retrieve patient data or process orders. For example, a simple prescription refill could involve toggling between three applications.
- Steep Learning Curve: New hires faced prolonged onboarding due to the system’s complexity, often taking weeks to master basic tasks.
- Login Management Issues: Managing multiple credentials across applications frustrated users and slowed workflows.
- System Instability: Frequent crashes and sluggish performance disrupted operations, eroding trust and delaying customer service.
These inefficiencies not only hampered staff productivity but also compromised Walgreens’ ability to deliver timely, high-quality patient care.
Goals & Objectives
Our mission was to design a platform that transformed the pharmacy experience.
The objectives were:
- Intuitive and Nimble Platform: Meet the needs of pharmacy staff and customers with a user-friendly system.
- Minimize Task Times: Reduce task completion duration by at least 25% to boost efficiency.
- Seamless Integration: Unify fragmented functions into a single, cohesive platform.
- Simplify Onboarding: Cut onboarding time for new users by 40% through intuitive design.
- Ensure Reliability: Deliver consistent, dependable workflows to rebuild user trust.
These goals directly addressed the identified challenges, setting clear targets for success.
Research & Discovery
We grounded our design in robust user research to understand pain points and needs:
- User Interviews: Conducted interviews with pharmacists, technicians, and administrators. Pain points included system crashes, lack of integration, and onboarding struggles.
- Journey Mapping Workshops: Visualized existing workflows, pinpointing bottlenecks like redundant logins and fragmented data access.
- Pharmacy Forum Feedback: Engaged pharmacists at events to test early concepts, validating our direction with real-world insights.
Key Findings:
- Users craved a streamlined, integrated system with minimal manual effort.
- New hires needed simpler navigation and faster learning paths.
- Top requests included single sign-on (SSO) and personalized task prioritization.
These insights shaped a user-centric design that prioritized efficiency and customization.
Design Process
Our approach was iterative, collaborative, and rooted in user feedback:
- Personas: Developed personas for pharmacists, technicians, and managers.
- Workflow Mapping: Mapping user workflows to identify pain points and opportunities.
- Wireframing & Prototyping: Created multiple wireframe iterations, followed by clickable prototypes tested in usability sessions. Feedback refined navigation and layout.
- Visual Design: Crafted intuitive UI components and a cohesive design system, ensuring consistency across applications.
- Engineering Collaboration: Worked hand-in-hand with lead engineers to align designs with technical constraints, delivering annotated specs for seamless handoffs.
This rigorous process ensured the platform was both user-friendly and implementation-ready.
Key Design Solutions
The new platform’s interface balanced functionality with aesthetics, delivering targeted solutions to address the core challenges:
- Global Home Dashboard: A centralized hub for prescription intake, immunizations, and order processing, eliminating the need for multiple system switches. Highlighted key metrics and tools for quick access, reducing cognitive load.
- Consistent Design Language: Used a unified color palette, typography, and iconography to enhance readability.
- Intuitive Navigation: Visual cues guided users through complex workflows effortlessly.
- Mobile solutions: Mobile interface provided flexible work enviornment.
- Single Sign-On (SSO): Unified login credentials, cutting access time and frustration.
- Roles & Permissions: Tailored access based on user roles, enhancing security and task focus.
- Inventory Management: Simplified replenishment and order tracking with intuitive workflows, preventing stock shortages.
- Error Handling: Implemented clear error messages and recovery options, ensuring reliability.
These solutions were validated through user testing, proving their effectiveness in solving real pain points.
Collaboration
Success hinged on tight collaboration:
- Cross-Functional Teams: Led UX, creative, and research teams while partnering with engineers and stakeholders.
- Design Reviews: Held regular sessions with engineers to ensure feasibility and address technical hurdles early.
- Stakeholder Alignment: Presented designs to stakeholders, incorporating their feedback to meet business goals.
- Streamlined process: Collaborated with engineering leadership on design assets delivery process.
This synergy bridged design and development, delivering a unified platform.
Constraints & Limitations
We navigated several challenges:
- Tight Deadlines: Prioritized high-impact features within a compressed timeline.
- Legacy Integration: Creatively worked around technical barriers to connect old and new systems.
- Budget Limits: Leveraged existing tools like Figma efficiently to stay within constraints.
An agile approach and clear prioritization kept us on track.
Results & Impact
The platform delivered measurable improvements:
- Efficiency: Task completion time dropped by 25%, per user surveys.
- Onboarding: New hires mastered the system 40% faster.
- Satisfaction: Pharmacists praised the intuitive design, with one noting,
“I can focus on patients, not the system.”
- Customer Experience: Faster service enhanced patient care quality.
These outcomes underscored the project’s success in transforming pharmacy operations.
Design System Impact
Building a new design system was a game-changer:
- Standardization: Unified UI components and patterns across teams.
- Adoption: Rolled out organization-wide, reducing design debt.
- Scalability: Enabled future updates with a modular framework.
This system became a cornerstone for Walgreens’ design consistency and efficiency.
Lessons Learned
This project reinforced key principles:
- User Focus: Continuous testing drives impactful solutions.
- Governance: Strong design system oversight ensures cohesion.
- Collaboration: Cross-team alignment balances user and business needs.
- Iteration: Feedback loops refine complex redesigns.
Personally, it deepened my commitment to empathy-driven design and strategic leadership, skills I’ve honed over 20+ years.
Final Thoughts
The Walgreens Pharmacy Renewal project showcases my ability to lead complex, high-stakes design initiatives. By transforming an outdated system into a modern, user-centric platform, I not only improved operational efficiency but also set a foundation for Walgreens’ future growth. This case study reflects my expertise in design leadership, system thinking, and collaboration—hallmarks of my 20-year career.
As a lead product designer, I offer a unique blend of creative leadership and technical expertise. I have successfully managed high-performing UX and design teams through complex projects at top companies.
My specialty is translating vision into world-class execution. I am as comfortable facilitating research sessions and extracting actionable insights, as I am wireframing innovative solutions and shepherding concepts to polished interactive prototypes.
Throughout my career, I have honed strategic and systems-thinking abilities while sharpening my eye for design detail. I balance user advocacy with business needs to shape experiences that engage audiences and deliver results.
With every new challenge, I leverage my passion for learning to expand my toolkit. I pride myself on bridging the gap between visual design, UX, and development. My diverse expertise allows me to oversee projects holistically, from user research and information architecture to creative direction and usability refinement.
As a design leader, I stay ahead of the latest trends while drawing from proven principles. My goal is to create future-ready experiences that set new precedents. With strategic vision and meticulous execution, I have enabled companies to consistently redefine the digital landscape.
