Our customers, stores and stock price said one thing: something had to change.
The pandemic affected Best Buy like any other company. We felt it harshly since our in-person experience is first class. The team was asked to find a way to bring customers back to the stores safely and increase revenue.
We knew that customers want to check-out in a safe and efficient manner. Putting them first would allow us to generate revenue. Our goal was to build out a better check-out process for our in-store customers.
How can we make the check-out process more efficient and effective for customers?
The process today is fairly straightforward but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be improved. We identified a few areas that would benefit from some improvement.
The team gave feedback but the design work was solely up to me
We had to design using the Best Buy App’s current infrastructure
Timelines made us research, design & implement quickly
The team gave me feedback and critique during our weekly check-ins but (almost) every pixel, button and screen was designed by me.
We also had to use the Best Buy App’s design system and infrastructure since our feature would integrate inside of it.
Lastly, the timelines and requirements were always changing so we had to do many things in tandem rather than separately.
Success for the team meant decreasing transaction time and generating sustained revenue.
The main goal was decreasing transaction time so customers could get in and out of the store safely and securely. This tied to our second goal: the more customers we helped, the more revenue we would generate.
We started with understanding how customers felt about the current check-out process in the stores.
The quote above came from a research study that really highlighted the need for a more efficient check-out experience. This statement became our main issue to solve.
Don’t want to wait in lines if their purchase is small
Don’t want to always talk to an employee to checkout
Want to choose how and where they checkout
Want checking out to feel simple and easy
Want to feel confident in their Best Buy purchases
Want the power to pay for their items on their own
The research study also listed the 6 main things that customers wanted in their check-out experience. We wanted to address as many of these as we could while meeting our business goals.
Based on what we heard, I created a simple user flow to get the team started on the work.
Since the feature integrates within the Best Buy App, I created our hypothetical “happy path” flow to get a better understanding of what we needed to do.
I started with some quick wireframes based on the happy path. Within a few weeks, we were approved to start building out a Figma prototype for testing with customers and employees.
Next, we conducted several user interviews to see how our customers felt about our proposed changes.
I worked with the research team to draft questions and took notes during the remote interviews. We had participants walk through the wireframe prototype and asked numerous questions about their thoughts.
The initial feedback was good: customers saw the benefit of a “Self Checkout” feature. They felt that it would help them feel more comfortable in the stores.
Employees, on the other hand, saw the value but weren’t sure if it would make their lives easier or harder. We knew that we had some more work to do.
We quickly got into a rhythm: several rounds of research and design followed by a flurry of development.
Over the course of a few months, I designed more and more “edge-case” scenarios as the developers started building out the experience. Above is just a fraction of the project’s entire scope.
As we explored, I shifted from wireframe components to high-fidelity buttons, icons, symbols, etc. We also started pushing the Best Buy App’s design system to accommodate more applicable success/error/null states.
The developers worked quickly and spun up a test app for customers and employees to test out. This was a cross-team collaboration with designers from Best Buy Seattle team providing design support and feedback.
By this time, we got permission to do in-store research which quickly sped up our workflow.
The pandemic was still raging but with the vaccines and mask mandates, we were allowed to conduct in-store research. Using a combination of paper prototypes and the test app on our phones, we started getting more in-depth feedback.
The results of the test were positive. The test app looked promising to the employees and the sentiment was starting to shift. While not every employee was on board, our stakeholders saw the promise in moving forward.
Customers enjoyed trying out the feature when it was actually on a phone. For them, being able to scan and pay for items right away was very helpful.
We fully integrated our Self-Checkout feature in the Best Buy App just in time for Thanksgiving.
The Seattle Team and I were in constant collaboration; we designed a more intuitive/streamlined experience that was testing well. From updated illustrations, colors and language, we felt confident in the feature launch.
We also used in-store signage to increase customer awareness of the app. This was a major collaboration between our team and Marketing; this partnership was developed over months so it was great to see the signs in the store.
Finally, the day was here. It was time to see if our research, design and development had paid off. The expectations were high but we felt confident that we could meet them.
The results came pouring in and were mostly positive; our hard work had paid off and it showed.
The app helped customers and employees save time in the store
Customers told us that they enjoyed using the new feature
Our average transaction time went down after the launch
While we tested this feature in only 50 stores, the numbers blew the Best Buy leadership away. We saw very positive results in all of the key areas they were looking for.
The best piece of internal feedback came from Best Buy's CEO herself! It validated all of our hard work to know that the leader of the entire company saw the value in what we did.
There are bigger, even more impactful features that are planned for future product updates.
While the launch was a success, there are many more features that we’ve already started working on. From easier ways to pay and more items to scan, the Self-Checkout team’s trajectory has never been higher.
Non-designers saws things I didn’t. It paid to listen to them at times
Testing continuously helped us challenge our assumptions
Every update doesn’t need to be monumental; progress adds up
Looking back, I learned quite a bit about building a feature with a nimble and diverse team. The experience of building this experience was challenging yet rewarding. I’m looking forward to seeing where this team goes next!
