UX Design: Ready for Customer

Company

Lowe's Associate Mobility

Role(s)

UX Designer
Prototype Building
Design Strategy
App Flow Design
Workshop Facilitator
Product Design

Summary

The redesigned curbside experience helps associates quickly identify what matters most and act with confidence. By simplifying information, improving visual clarity, and reinforcing urgency, the workflow supports faster handoffs and smoother coordination. This clarity enables associates to serve customers more efficiently, reduce wait times, and deliver a more consistent curbside experience.

Background

Ready for Customer: Faster curbside handoff with clearer focus.

Curbside pickup is a critical part of the Lowe’s customer experience, and associates manage growing order volumes while maintaining fast service times. The existing experience surfaces too much information at once, making it harder to quickly identify active orders, coordinate ownership, and respond to waiting customers.

Building on prior improvements to in store workflows, we partner with associates, managers, and cross functional teams to simplify the curbside experience. By clarifying order ownership, reducing visual noise, and reinforcing urgency, the Ready for Customer experience helps associates move with confidence and deliver faster, more consistent curbside service.

Problem Statement

Lowe’s needed to streamline the curbside experience to support faster service and clearer execution.

Curbside pickup plays a critical role in meeting customer expectations for speed and convenience. As order volume grows, associates need a clearer, more focused experience that helps them act quickly and confidently without unnecessary friction.

Customer Wait Times
Lowe’s aims to deliver curbside orders in under five minutes, with a target of two minutes or less, requiring clear signals and rapid decision making.
Associate Order Claiming
Associates need a simple way to claim ownership of active orders to reduce confusion and improve coordination.
Reduce Information Overload
The experience must surface only the most relevant details for the task at hand, allowing associates to focus on action instead of interpretation.

Customer Status

Purpose of Card List

Identify customer more quickly
Determine priority
- Determine customer wait time
Display associate action(s)
Prevent duplicate effort on a single pickup
Brief order info
- Location of order
- Type of order
  - Paint
  - Assembly required
  - Installation order

Card Contents

Affinity Grouping

Customer Identity

Time and Priority

Associate Actions

Order Info

Planning Card Layouts

Before moving into high fidelity design for the Ready for Customer cards, we worked closely with subject matter experts, stakeholders, and store associates to validate the information hierarchy and identify the most important data needed to support fast, accurate curbside fulfillment. This discovery work ensured the cards prioritize what matters most and help reduce errors during execution.

Simplified Journey Map

Associates are tasked with fulfilling curbside orders within 5 minutes of the customer's arrival. We want to make it as easy as possible to find their order, find their parking spot, and make customer contact quickly.

Alerts and Sounds

We also worked to identify alert sounds that would:

Stand out in a potentially noisy store
Give a clear indication of a customer waiting
Determine frequency of alert to prevent ignoring

Simplified App Flow

Updated information architecture improved scannability & prioritization of tasks

Associates indicated the most relevant information needed in assisting a curbside customer was:

Order Staging Location
Identity of the Customer
Vehicle Parking Spot
Vehicle Color and Body Style
Customer Phone Number

Results

Increased Font Sizes
Older associates often complained text was quite small & hard to read.
Reduced Clutter
Removing 2 items from original card face reduced visual noise
Urgency Indicators
By adding waiting & ETA timers, associates reported they were better able to plan their next actions & ask for help when needed.
Vehicle Identifier
Associates reported the vehicle identification information was more clear & aided in quicker customer delivery
Increased Performance Scores
Overall reduction in time to hand off purchases saw an increase in Likely-to-Recommend scores for most stores.

Ready for Customer