Business Innovation Strategy & UX Design
Elevating Retail Experience
CVS Health’s “Store of the Future”
Overview
CVS Health, American’s leading healthcare company that provides a wide range of services, including pharmacy service, health insurance, clinical services, digital health, and retail store for everyone. It serves millions not just with prescriptions but with holistic, accessible healthcare.
I led a team of 3 UX designers and 3 UX researchers, working closely with business, engineer, and subject matter experts to develop the North-star vision to modernize the retail environment, ensuring that technological advancement supported both hyper-efficient automation and human-centric design.
CVS Health, American’s leading healthcare company that provides a wide range of services, including pharmacy service, health insurance, clinical services, digital health, and retail store for everyone. It serves millions not just with prescriptions but with holistic, accessible healthcare.
I led a team of 3 UX designers and 3 UX researchers, working closely with business, engineer, and subject matter experts to develop the North-star vision to modernize the retail environment, ensuring that technological advancement supported both hyper-efficient automation and human-centric design.
What does convenience mean?
The physical stores have faced a critical business challenge. Their current retail systems created decades ago are disjointed digital/physical experiences for both their employees and customers, leading to unhappy employees and confused customers. The original brief was clear: make check-out faster, so that it can live up to the convenience name.
The physical stores have faced a critical business challenge. Their current retail systems created decades ago are disjointed digital/physical experiences for both their employees and customers, leading to unhappy employees and confused customers. The original brief was clear: make check-out faster, so that it can live up to the convenience name.
Early-staged Purposed Success Metrics
![]()
Early Journey Maps Mapped within Adobe XD
![]()
Early Journey Maps Mapped within Adobe XD
Hidden Under the Iceberg
While the stores have expanded its service, with multiple offerings that could ultimately benefit the customers, it has also crowded the experience. However, when we scrutinized the real-world data that is collected through the timestamps, we found our pharmacists were already clocking in under four minutes per customer.
While taking a deeper look into the NPS score, satisfaction varied wildly, hinting that something deeper was at play. We have been chasing the closest definition of convenience, but not the deepest one. The real challenge is never to move people through faster, but to make interaction matter more.
![]()
While the stores have expanded its service, with multiple offerings that could ultimately benefit the customers, it has also crowded the experience. However, when we scrutinized the real-world data that is collected through the timestamps, we found our pharmacists were already clocking in under four minutes per customer.
“Does convenience only equate to faster service speed? Or does it mean more than that?”
While taking a deeper look into the NPS score, satisfaction varied wildly, hinting that something deeper was at play. We have been chasing the closest definition of convenience, but not the deepest one. The real challenge is never to move people through faster, but to make interaction matter more.
Loyalty as Journey Driver
As we shadowed pharmacists and customers alike, I learned that these visits are rarely just personal errands. Parents come on behalf of their children, caretakers for elders, pet-lovers for their companions. The current fragmented, channel-hopping experience left many feeling lost in the shuffle. So the strategy is to elevate loyalty, not as a rewards program, but as a journey-making bridge for every family, every visit.
And some customers appreciated rapid, hands-off efficiency, but many cherished the connection with tenured pharmacists, those who cared, and asked about their grandkids' graduations, remembered their journey, and cracked a joke or two on the fly. That’s where loyalty took root. And we realized that for the new employees, there was different tension, how to accelerate not just tasks, but also their ability to forge these bonds with the people they interact with.
As we shadowed pharmacists and customers alike, I learned that these visits are rarely just personal errands. Parents come on behalf of their children, caretakers for elders, pet-lovers for their companions. The current fragmented, channel-hopping experience left many feeling lost in the shuffle. So the strategy is to elevate loyalty, not as a rewards program, but as a journey-making bridge for every family, every visit.
And some customers appreciated rapid, hands-off efficiency, but many cherished the connection with tenured pharmacists, those who cared, and asked about their grandkids' graduations, remembered their journey, and cracked a joke or two on the fly. That’s where loyalty took root. And we realized that for the new employees, there was different tension, how to accelerate not just tasks, but also their ability to forge these bonds with the people they interact with.
Early Goals
Colleague Empowerment
Rather than simply digitizing old workflows, we reimagined the employee experience. Creating seamless transitions across devices, apps, and channels wasn’t just technical—every UI choice was a chance to give time and agency back to store teams, freeing them to engage, empathize, and deliver the care that truly differentiates CVS. Being able to pick up the journey from any store device is a big part of the freedom.
A significant part of our strategy focused on the intuitiveness and learnability of the new system. We aimed to create a system that set new employees up for success, allowing them to rapidly gain proficiency and internalize the nuanced knowledge of their senior colleagues.
This included revamping their onboarding experience to be a continuous learning system, adapting to individual behaviors and preferences, not just a one-time training event.
Rather than simply digitizing old workflows, we reimagined the employee experience. Creating seamless transitions across devices, apps, and channels wasn’t just technical—every UI choice was a chance to give time and agency back to store teams, freeing them to engage, empathize, and deliver the care that truly differentiates CVS. Being able to pick up the journey from any store device is a big part of the freedom.
A significant part of our strategy focused on the intuitiveness and learnability of the new system. We aimed to create a system that set new employees up for success, allowing them to rapidly gain proficiency and internalize the nuanced knowledge of their senior colleagues.
This included revamping their onboarding experience to be a continuous learning system, adapting to individual behaviors and preferences, not just a one-time training event.
New Personas built from Interviews, surveys, and data points
Meeting Customers at Where They are
Our user research also uncovered a spectrum of shopping styles. We built features enabling customers to pre-select preferences before entering the store, gently steering them into personalized journeys—without ever sacrificing the human warmth of an in-person greeting. Our north-star was to make the pharmacy not a siloed pit stop, but the connective hub customers wanted.
We designed a new POS system that erased invisible barriers—integrating loyalty, family profiles, and transparency on every transaction, freeing employees and customers from always having to stare at the screen, but to go along their journey with them.
Our user research also uncovered a spectrum of shopping styles. We built features enabling customers to pre-select preferences before entering the store, gently steering them into personalized journeys—without ever sacrificing the human warmth of an in-person greeting. Our north-star was to make the pharmacy not a siloed pit stop, but the connective hub customers wanted.
We designed a new POS system that erased invisible barriers—integrating loyalty, family profiles, and transparency on every transaction, freeing employees and customers from always having to stare at the screen, but to go along their journey with them.
“ Customers could now lead their own health journey, with clear, empowering touchpoints at every step, while colleagues retained the time to enrich—not rush—the conversation.”
Journey Beyond the White-brick Walls
Proposed feature concepts like auto-logging customer’s shopping journeys and monthly goals to extend the interactive experience beyond the store. We don’t want to be another push notification that you swipe away, but a solution that provides value, and respects your time and attention.
Proposed feature concepts like auto-logging customer’s shopping journeys and monthly goals to extend the interactive experience beyond the store. We don’t want to be another push notification that you swipe away, but a solution that provides value, and respects your time and attention.
Micro-Moments that Builds Retails Up
The real breakthrough in this strategy journey wasn’t just a sleeker workflow or a more intuitive interface, it was the act of giving time and choice back, to the customers, and to the colleague shaping their everyday experience.
By reengineering the invisible hurdles and unburdening store employees from endless transaction minutiae, triage, and verification, we didn’t just enhance efficiency, we reclaimed and restored what matters most in the rush of retail: the micro-moments that give colleagues time to help, to listen, to go beyond the script. When you design for connection, not just convenience, stores become more than transactional stops.
The real breakthrough in this strategy journey wasn’t just a sleeker workflow or a more intuitive interface, it was the act of giving time and choice back, to the customers, and to the colleague shaping their everyday experience.
By reengineering the invisible hurdles and unburdening store employees from endless transaction minutiae, triage, and verification, we didn’t just enhance efficiency, we reclaimed and restored what matters most in the rush of retail: the micro-moments that give colleagues time to help, to listen, to go beyond the script. When you design for connection, not just convenience, stores become more than transactional stops.
Our strategy wasn’t about making interaction faster, it was always about making them matter.
Results
- Internal pilot studies shows a 30% reduction in employee-task switching
- Internal pilot studies also show an increase in customer feedback related to meaningful interaction quality, relating how much they feel heard.
See more:
Future of Assessment w/ Minecraft Education
(Strategy & Innovation)
Furniture Design