CVS Health – Your orders

Improving prescription status clarity at national scale

I led a redesign of the “Your Orders” experience across iOS, Android, and web.

User testing showed the existing design was confusing, so I focused on making order status easier to scan and understand. With CVS filling over 4 million prescriptions a day, even small clarity improvements can help millions of people.

Project overview

Role
Lead UX/UI Designer

Team

  • Product leadership

  • Product stakeholders (Business)

  • Research and accessibility partners

  • Content designer

  • Design system team

  • iOS, Android, and web engineers

  • Junior UX/UI designer

Platform

iOS • Android • Web

Key deliverables

  • 20+ prescription card designs

  • Simple and complex order scenarios

  • Scalable Figma components

  • Design QA templates and documentation

The problem

CVS fills millions of prescriptions every day, and many include issues like insurance delays or out-of-stock medications.

The “Your orders” page is where customers check these updates, but testing showed the information was hard to scan and confusing.

Many people didn’t know what was happening or what to do next.

Discovery

I partnered with a senior researcher to run an unmoderated A/B test on the Your Orders experience.

Test scenarios

A: 6 prescriptions, 1 issue
B: 2 prescriptions, no issues

Research goals
Can users find what they need?
Do they understand next steps?
Does the layout help or confuse?

Participants
10 people with different ages and digital habits who regularly use pharmacy apps.

Test A

Test B

Key findings
The researcher shared a summary deck, which I reviewed and synthesized using AI.

  • People focused on large status messages and skipped details

  • Some messages explained what happened but not what to do next

  • Pickup dates helped only when they matched the real status

  • Mixed messages caused confusion (ex: “Not filled” + “Ready Wednesday”)

  • Parent and child statuses often conflicted

  • “Review options” and “Options” felt unclear and interchangeable

Competitive review
I reviewed leading pharmacy apps (Walgreens, Amazon, Capsule) to see how they handle complex order states. The strongest patterns were calm, simple, and action-led.

Strategy

Based on user testing, I focused on four core goals:

  • Make status and next steps obvious

  • Remove mixed or conflicting messages

  • Group prescriptions by urgency

  • Reduce stress with clean, calm layouts

To simplify the experience, I regrouped nine different order statuses into four clear categories:

  • Needs Attention → replaced Not filled & Delayed

  • In Progress → replaced We’re working on it, & Upcoming

  • Ready for You → replaced Ready & Shipped

  • Completed — Picked up, Delivered, Canceled

This reduced cognitive load and helped customers understand their situation at a glance.

I then rebuilt the prescription cards using scalable design system components and redesigned all 21 order-state scenarios, so the screen supports faster scanning, clearer decisions, and smoother follow-through. Below are six examples.

Prescription cards

Needs attention — Action required

  • Combined conflicting messages into one clear parent status

  • Removed all pickup details until the required action is completed, preventing mixed readiness signals

  • Removed the Options menu to focus on one next step

  • Moved drug name to the top and added a product image

Legacy design

Redesign

Needs attention — Out of stock

  • Simplified messaging to show only what matters

  • Removed misleading pickup dates

  • Elevated drug name and photo

Legacy design

Redesign

Needs attention — Shipment delayed

  • Reduced duplicate messaging

  • Moved address + pricing details to the details screen

  • Kept the card clean and scannable

Redesign

Legacy design

Needs attention — expired prescription

  • Removed pickup dates and location until the issue is resolved

  • Kept one clear action: Message pharmacy

  • Reduced extra CTAs and clutter

  • Drug name moved to the top + photo

Legacy design

Redesign

In progress

  • Merged overlapping statuses into a single, clear state: “In progress”

  • Simplified hierarchy

  • Clarified SLA

Redesign

Legacy design

Ready for you

  • Removed redundant language

  • Reduced clutter

  • Added clear CTAs for pickup or delivery

Legacy design

Redesign

Overcoming constraints

This redesign was not formally prioritized, so I explored it independently using real insights from user testing.

I shared the work with designers on the Orders team to spark discussion and inform future improvements.

This gave me space to apply systems thinking and experiment with AI-assisted workflows, while keeping the focus on clarity, scale, and user needs.

Final designs

I applied CVS’s design system, then simplified the screen to reduce visual noise and improve clarity and accessibility.

Key improvements:
Removed extra color bands so each card feels clean, contained, and easy to scan
Added a soft background behind the cards to improve contrast
Removed decorative icons, keeping only warning icons when something needs attention
Added clear medication images to help users quickly recognize what they ordered

All of these changes reduced scrolling on Test A by 67.5%, making the page faster to scan and easier to act on.

Legacy design

Redesign

Redesign

Legacy design

Dev handoff & implementation

While this concept work did not ship, I supported the team in a critical way: QA.

The pharmacy design team didn’t have a QA process, so I built one from scratch. I created templates, tracking tools, and clear step-by-step guides to show what was tested, what changed, and what still needed fixes.

I also trained 20+ designers on the process and wrote documentation that new team members used as their starting point.

QA process I created

  • Create user story (Product + Engineering)

  • QA the work (Design)

  • Track outcomes

    • Defects found → document and assign fixes

    • No defects → mark complete

Impact & outcomes

Explored how small, user-tested changes could reduce confusion and stress in a high-volume pharmacy experience.

While this concept work did not ship, it helped inform clearer status patterns, stronger grouping logic, and more scalable card design across the Orders space.

It also strengthened my leadership through QA ownership, mentoring, and advocating for user-centered decisions.

Team feedback
“Time and time again I’m impressed with the care, thoroughness and great quality of Nancy’s work—both how she works with people and the designs that she produces. She’s able to make good progress while collaborating with fellow designers and SCRUM team members. I note particularly how she gracefully handles many unexpected challenges that come up as details need to be worked out with development teams. When Nancy’s working on something, I’m happy to know I don’t need to worry about it, and I can look forward to excellent work and positive collaboration.” — Design Lead