How my team and I delivered a fully functional Health App & Device Store, among other large-scale builds… start to finish in 4 months.

Opportunity

• Business: expand Walgreens’ digital footprint, by engaging with 60 million-plus monthly Walgreens site visitors to track health & fitness activities on Walgreens.com, change outcomes, and build loyalty
• UX: design and deliver more intuitive, mobile-friendly online programs and products
• Business: integrate Balance Rewards API with online health tracking to encourage repeat in-store/online visits
• UX & SEO (on-page): ensure the rebrand was carried forward in content & creative throughout the program tools and site pages
• UX: ensure seamless experience for users syncing a health/fitness device or app on the platform

The Way Forward

On Walgreens’s e-Commerce team, we (myself and UX leads, designers and a creative director) were faced with a daunting challenge: overhaul, rebrand, redesign and build out a full-suite health tracking platform & app that integrated with Walgreens’ loyalty program, Balance Rewards.

Business also wanted to leverage a partnership with WebMD by integrating WebMD’s health coaching tools into the brand-new experience.

(All of the below took place over six months; needless to say we were busy. There was a lot of change at this time in the Walgreens ecosphere as well.)

July – September 2014: Just a few of the asks at hand…

• “Steps 2.0” needed to be completely rebranded for improved tie-in to Balance Rewards
• The platform’s tracking functionality needed to be simplified, with added integration support for new apps & tracking devices (fitness wristbands, etc.)
• All creative copy and interactive content had to deliver better UX for the transition to the new experience
• Build an all-new App Store for device/app syncing to the platform
• WebMD’s health coaching tools also had to be rebranded and integrated

Whew! Starting in July 2014, our team brainstormed and delivered a strategy – including blank-page ideation – for the adaptive redesign of Balance Rewards for healthy choices™ (the new brand name Marketing had assigned us). I added small functional components to help improve interaction across desktop, tablet and mobile, like a points chart and zero-state prompts.

There were some elements of the tracking flow specific to mobile, too, that I took the lead on, like goal-setting functionality. I saw a need to ensure the experience was painless for users on their smartphones.

In October, to design Walgreens’ Health Apps & Devices store, I led content strategy and created a product taxonomy for easily adding new apps/ devices in future iterations. I also set up the categorization, then delivered interactive content (how to connect, etc) and product descriptions. And with a creative director, I concepted/ wrote creative banners.

Finally, for adding the WebMD piece, I teamed with UX to create a “what’s new” tutorial, revised copy for branding, and delivered interactive enhancements for Balance Rewards integration.

I’ve learned that in such a large organization like Walgreens, it can be hard to define success. But I can say that through the tight collaboration of my team, getting these massive projects to launch in such a short time was a big accomplishment in the digital space… and it undoubtedly taught us a lot.