Enabling faster prescription pickup at CVS
55% increase in engagement
OVERVIEW
I helped design the signature, payment, and entry point flows to enable a faster, line-free pickup experience. I collaborated with another designer responsible for the barcode shown on the orders page.
ROLE
UX Designer
TEAM
2 designers, 3 developers, 2 product managers, 1 content writer
TIMELINE
2024
Background
Problem
Customers waste time waiting in line to pick up prescription during busy hours.
Solution
To support the goal of reducing pharmacy operating costs, our team was tasked with refining and integrating the successful pilot into the broader Order Details flow. I redesigned the barcode feature as a flexible, modular component for use across the app and evolved the expedited pickup from a standalone flow to a cohesive, barcode-linked experience within Order Details.
Results
After launching to a pilot CVS store in Boston, there was a 55% increase in engagement. It averaged out to save 10 minutes at the pharmacy.
1. Initiate & Scope
Align on the problem
Frame the project before research by aligning on the “why,” success metrics, and constraints. At CVS, long pharmacy lines during peak hours averaging 20 minutes were identified as a key pain point. The product, business, and design teams aligned on this as the core problem to solve.
Measure success
The vision is a CVS app where managing health requires no calls, no lines, no guess, and no stress. We want our customer's checkout as seamless as possible.
Goal #1
Reduce wait times at the pharmacy
Goal #2
Increase engagement with the CVS app
Goal #3
Increase timely pickups to avoid pharmacy costs of restocking and returning unclaimed prescriptions
2. Discover
User research
Finding 1: Customers expressed interest in a fast pick up lane.
They are familiar with this concept from other businesses that use fast pick up. They find it very modern and saves time. 15-30 minutes in line.
Finding 2: Customers are asked to pay and sign a signature at the store
When picking up a prescription at CVS, you will generally be required to provide a signature, either on a digital screen or a physical signature log, to acknowledge receipt of the medication.
Finding 3: Customers value privacy
Some users are uncomfortable sharing their PHI out loud in public.
Service blueprint
I made a service blue print of all the scenarios for the new experience that point to the strategy and vision of fast pick up. This exercise helped me lay out all the possible scenarios and understand the points of interactions of the user journey.
When picking up a prescription at CVS, you will generally be required to provide a signature, either on a digital screen or a physical signature log, to acknowledge receipt of the medication.
Service blueprint image:
Analyze competitors
I looked at some e-commerce websites that many users are familiar with. I pulled some things that worked well.
Competitive analysis inspiratiron image:
3. Define
How Might…
save customers time at the pharmacy with our digital experience?
Identify constraints and requirements
The constraints were that we relied on the payment team’s engineers, so we could only modify the UI of the input fields without changing the existing page’s functionality. Additionally, the Fast Pickup program could only be introduced on the Order Details page, which our team owns; adding it elsewhere would require coordination with another team. Finally, the Fast Pickup lane at the pharmacy requires pilot testing and staff training, so it was excluded from the initial rollout of the feature.
Hypothesize solutions
By allowing customer add payment and signature ahead of time it will save them time in line and address privacy concerns
Hypothesis 1
By allowing customer add payment and signature ahead of time it will save them time in line and address privacy concerns.
Hypothesis 2
By establishing a pilot fast pick up lane where pharmacist can simply scan barcode.
4. Ideate
Brainstorm with stakeholders
5. Design
Final UI
This program saves a user's payment method and signature ahead of time, so they would not have to take these steps at the pharmacy counter. As I set about integrating it into the Order Details flow, there were some backend updates that I needed to solve nt team to customize some of their pages based on our feature requirements.
Scenario: Customer has no saved signature on file
Scenario: Customer has saved signature on file
Payment
Users were confused when the 'refill all' button suddenly switched to 'refill'. If we used modern iOS interactions we can decreause friction.
Scenario: Customer has no payment on file
Scenario: Customer has saved payment on file
Results
As of now, the fast pickup experience is set to expand to more customers as additional stores enable the feature at the point of sale. Early results are promising: among customers who have opted in, barcode usage is over 15 percentage points higher than baseline. To support continued growth, we plan to launch an onboarding overlay to help customers discover and understand the feature. We expect adoption to increase further as store rollout continues and awareness improves.
Conclusion
By designing key touchpoints—signature, payment, and entry flows—and integrating a scannable barcode for quick pharmacy access, we enabled a faster, line-free prescription pickup experience for CVS customers. The collaboration across design and development teams not only improved efficiency but also aligned with existing systems to ensure a consistent, scalable solution. This project reduced in-store wait times and demonstrated the impact of thoughtful UX on both customer satisfaction and operational flow.
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