Let’s talk about the work I did for the Walgreens Pharmacy Renewal team. I say talk because the work I did is covered under a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). I guess I shouldn’t even talk about it, so let’s change that to gesture. An important note, I will not be showing sketches or design work.
I worked with Walgreens designing their best in class Pharmacy system and related apps.
Pharmacy systems and healthcare as a whole are very complex things. Add in that fact that this is an enterprise solution with the different levels of downstream participants and you have a multifaceted system to design. Walgreens has, depending on who you ask, somewhere between 9-10,000 stores.
My process did not change much during my time at Walgreens, if anything it just became more refined and I added more techniques to the staple. Not every project allowed me to the opportunity to use every method due to time constraints and how the teams were organized.
My Process:
(The process, like most, take place in an overlapping fashion)
- Research – talking with SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), talking with Users, interviews, reviews of existing products/designs, journey mapping, user flows
- Strategy work to understand the place this work/problem exists at, what other processes exist within the bigger picture, are there concerns for the future that are visible here and now that we should address?
- Light Design – start sketching ideas, explore the information architecture, paper prototyping
- Full Design – begin Axure prototype within Main Repository, layout pages, implement interactions, and start testing the work myself to look for omissions, gaps, and errors
- Collaboration Discussions – This tends to take place throughout the entire process whether this is with other designers, business team, or bringing the designs to users
- Usability testing – Putting it before users and gathering feedback
- Follow Up – Updating designs to incorporate new patterns or data models as the work progressed (happened infrequently)