Transforming Digital Customer Experience
In my role as a product designer and UX researcher for NAPAOnline and NAPA PROLink, I embarked on a comprehensive project to enhance user experiences across these critical platforms.
Task
E-commerce Replatform
Through a comprehensive approach to enhancing user experience on NAPAOnline and NAPA PROLink, involving intentional ux design and research decisions, significant contributions were made to the digital success of Genuine Parts Company.
Genuine Parts Company (GPC) is a leading automotive parts distributor in North America, with a strong U.S. presence through the NAPA Auto Parts network. While B2C platforms were being modernized, B2B products such as NAPA PROLink suffered from inconsistent UI patterns due to the lack of a shared design system, resulting in a fragmented user experience and inefficiencies for development teams.
I also helped drive the creation of a centralized design system to standardize components, patterns, and interaction guidelines across platforms. I partnered with product, engineering, and research to align the system with real user needs through journey mapping and UX research. This work embedded UX standards into the development workflow and supported scalable, consistent product delivery.
The visuals on this page were tweaked due to confidentiality.
Top UX Goals for Ecommerce Modernization
1. Improve Search Experience: Enhance the search functionality to provide faster, more accurate, and user-friendly results, ensuring customers can easily find the products they need.
2. Digital Transformation: Modernize the ecommerce platform to leverage the latest technologies, improving overall user experience and operational efficiency.
3. Enable Efficiency at Scale: Standardize UI components and workflows to streamline design and development, while creating a scalable foundation for future growth.
4. Drive Conversion : Improve search usability so customers can find products faster, engage more easily, and complete purchases with less friction.
NAPAOnline(B2C) & ProLink(B2B) Key Highlight:
- Faceted Navigation: Enhanced the faceted navigation to highlight specific filters, improving user ease in finding parts.
- Search Experience: Refined the search experience by understanding user tasks and scenarios, working closely with technical and product teams.
- Design Systems: Developed design systems that ensured consistency across platforms. Impact: These improvements enhanced user experience, significantly contributing to sales growth.
- UX Research: Conducted user interviews to understand workflows for the PROLink Estimator. Discovered that non-mechanics needed guidance in selecting parts and estimating labor costs, leading to the addition of workflows and approval processes to boost user confidence.
- UX Strategy: Acted as the liaison for product ideation, partnering closely with engineering and product teams during agile activities, including backlog grooming and refinement. Facilitated design reviews, user interviews, QA testing, demos, and dev handoff, ensuring seamless transitions and alignment with business goals. Impact: Digitalization of the PROLink platform modernized the user experience and aligned with competitive standards, contributing to sales growth. Ensured a consistent user experience across NAPAOnline, PROLink, and other internal platforms, reducing confusion and simplifying development and training processes.
Through a comprehensive approach to enhancing user experience on NAPAOnline and NAPA PROLink, involving thoughtful design and rigorous user research, significant contributions were made to the digital success of Genuine Parts Company.
Digital Transformation
Both B2Band B2C platforms underwent significant digital transformation, enhancing user experience.
Consistency
Provided a consistent user experience across platforms, reducing confusion and easing development and training processes.
Sales Growth
Digital efforts resulted in 14% increased sales, enhancing overall business performance.