Project overview
Our team’s ambition was to work collaboratively with the Lowe’s team to reimagine a future-state post-purchase experience for Lowe’s customers across three product areas: order history & tracking, subscriptions, and installation.
Specifically, we were tasked to
- Conduct an in-person workshop with the Lowe’s team to find and define concepts worth pursuing,
- Based on the concepts we define, build wireframes illustrating the concepts,
- Create visual designs that further illustrate the concepts, and
- Conduct user testing and iterate on designs and concepts as needed.
The brief was left somewhat open ended on purpose, giving us the flexibility to play inside a large sandbox — we needed to work inside of the three product areas to design future state concepts, but no meaningful direction was given other than that.
I was aligned to the order history & tracking work.
Over the course of ten weeks, this is some of what we accomplished:
The project kicked off with an in-person workshop led by Sapient at Lowe’s HQ. During the workshop, we worked with product and UX team members from Lowe’s to define worthwhile ideas to pursue related to the three product areas.
Over the next ten weeks, we continued to work with the Lowe’s product team to refine the ideas captured during the workshop. We started on the whiteboard for initial ideation.
We had daily standups and weekly workshare sessions with the Lowe’s team. This allowed us to continually refine ideas. We quickly moved from whiteboard sketching into low and mid fidelity wireframes.
Roughly 75% of the way through the project, we decided we weren’t satisfied with the strength of the concept we were pursuing. We decided to pivot to another concept we initially decided not to pursue. We moved away from the idea to show customers items that might relate to their purchase on the order details page (e.g., a user might need a hose to install the fridge they ordered) into the concept of allowing users to modify their order between placement and fulfillment.
An additional change we decided on was a narrative approach which would bring the ideas to life a little more: instead of just showing every screen design that would ultimately be needed, we would only design the screens needed to tell a story from a user’s point of view.
With that in mind,
Meet Luka
Luka is a residential renovation contractor with a six-person crew. He really enjoys his work but is less comfortable with the administrative aspects of the job and he depends on receiving the right materials on time to keep his crew working and on schedule. For customers like Luka, time means everything.
Luka has ordered some subway tile from Lowe’s. He hoped to pick it up during the day, but he’s running behind and won’t make it to Lowe’s until late — maybe even after the store closes. Upon viewing his order inside his account, he notices the “Modify Pickup” button. He decides to see what his options are by clicking it.
Key features:
- Option to modify the fulfillment type is prominently displayed
- Information hierarchy offers clarity around fulfillment type, current status, and available options based on order status.
He selects “Change Delivery or Pickup Method” to see if something might suit him.
Key features:
- Offers clarity on which order is being modified
- Modification options vary by fulfillment type, order status, etc. and appear dynamically based on user selection.
Now, he sees he has a few options and reviews them. He is happy to see there’s an option to accommodate him even if the store closes before he can get there.
Key features:
- Customers’ needs change often. Sometimes, they want to change the fulfillment type. Instead of the costly move of a customer canceling an order and placing another for the same item, we’ve given them the option to keep the original order and modify it to better suit their needs
- All relevant details for each new fulfillment type are prominently displayed
- Keeping the experience housed in one page feels light and easy to the user
He confirms that he’ll be the one picking up the tile — but makes a mental note that next time, he should send his assistant.
Key features:
- Another example of dynamic follow up questions – in this case, the user placing the order isn’t necessarily the one picking it up
- If “Someone else” is selected, additional information would be collected to enable order updates and pickup instructions.
Finally, he confirms which store he wants to pick up the tile from. He selects a more convenient option based on where he’ll be later that day.
Key features:
- The store list will feel personalized to the user. The stores might be listed with the authenticated user’s home store showed first, followed by stores in close proximity (ordered by distance from the user’s current location)
- User input will vary by which fulfillment type they select. If the user selected Delivery, address options from the user’s profile would surface instead of a store list
He receives a confirmation and moves on with his day.
Key features:
- We offer assurance to the user by displaying key information -- in this case, where and when the order will be ready for pickup
Modifying the purchase after the order is placed.
Later, Luka receives a text message that his order is ready for pickup.
Key features:
- Proactively engaging the customer
- Surfacing the right level of information: order status, store location, and a link to instructions
- Our alerts encourage action. A link takes the user directly where they need to go
Once he’s at the store, he follows simple directions to get his subway tile from the Outside Locker.
Key features:
- Easy to follow instructions
- If someone else needs to pick the order up, the QR code can be shared
User feedback from concept testing
📄 All options on one page
Users placed high value on seeing all the alternative delivery or pickup options in one place rather than having to search for the options.
‼️ Lock box excitement
Users were unexpectedly very excited about the possibility of a lock box and associated high value with it as part of the experience.
🚚 Importance of tracking
Tracking orders, large or small, LTL, FTL or Parcel were done daily if not more frequently.
“Literally it's only like 2 or 3 screens which means it’s efficient and that makes it super valuable…I would be nitpicking to find anything more efficient than this.”
— Peter
More details and another narrative illustrating the story from a different angle are available upon request.
Contact me
✉️ Email: zachisverymodest@gmail.com
📞 Phone: (706) 329-0622
👨🏻💼 LinkedIn: DM me