Total Wine & More
Turning a Junk Drawer Into a Usable Account Menu
- Role
- Lead UX/UI Designer
- Responsibilities
- End-to-end design process
- Collaborators
- 2 designers, product, Analytics, engineering
- timeline
- Q2 2025
overview
“Redesign the app account menu.” No defined problem statement, no success criteria.
This project started with a vague brief: redesign the account menu. Everyone knew it was as outdated and messy, I liked to refer to it as the “junk drawer,” but we needed to understand why. Instead of jumping straight to solutions, we used analytics, a usability audit, and baseline user testing to define a clear problem.
Uncovering the Problem
The most-used features were the hardest to find.
Our first step was building the research foundation to figure out what we were actually solving for.
I started by pulling usage data to understand how customers were actually moving through the account menu. The data pointed clearly to a handful of high-value areas: rewards, order history, buy again, and messages. These were driving the majority of engagement and conversion.
What stood out was the gap between what users were trying to do and how the current design supported it. A long, undifferentiated list of links offered no hierarchy and no signal for where to start.
User interviews and app store reviews revealed additional pain points.
1. Loyalty barcode was hard to find
Customers couldn’t locate their barcode quickly during checkout—causing friction and hold-ups at the register. Store associates flagged this as a frequent source of frustration on both sides of the counter.
2. Users couldn’t find where to update their notification preferences
Notification preferences split across two places. Email preferences lived inside Account → Preferences, buried at the bottom below other settings. Push notification settings were on a completely separate page accessed through “Notification Settings.”
Competitive Research
Information Architecture
Getting the structure right before designing anything.
With the audit and competitive research in hand, we worked on a new information architecture before touching visual design. The goal was a clear grouping that would reduce the cognitive load of scanning the menu.
I ran tree testing to validate the structure before committing to anything visual. Participants worked through common tasks: finding their loyalty barcode, changing notification preferences, accessing order history.
Testing & Iteration
Usability testing revealed gaps in findability and guided iterative improvements.
Users expected to manage notifications from the notifications screen
Our initial design had a single entry point to Communication Preferences from the account navigation. In testing, 80% of users went to the Notification screen to update their notification settings. Adding a second entry point on the Notification screen improved task success to 100%.
16% → 92% task success
Stakeholder input coming into the project was to make “Messages” a quick link since it was a high-converting item in the original design. Testing showed users couldn’t find it (16% success, 1.5/5 ease of use). Testing showed they expected a bell icon labeled “Notifications” in the header. We updated the label and placement, raising task success to 92% and ease of use to 4.75/5.
Solutioning
The right information, in the right place
No more fumbling at checkout
We surfaced the loyalty barcode using a “Tap to View” interaction to make it easily accessible.
Rewards progress at a glance
Progress ring makes rewards status readable at a glance, without having to tap into the rewards page.
One unified screen for notification and email preferences
Push notifications and email subscriptions consolidated into a single Communication Preferences screen where users can manage both in one place.
Outcomes
Testing showed improvement across every task
Post-redesign usability testing measured the same core tasks against baseline results.
Reflection
What this project taught me
1. Familiarity creates blind spots
I initially carried over parts of the existing experience because they were familiar and already established. That familiarity made some issues harder to spot.
For example, notifications were labeled as “Messages,” a mismatch with user expectations that I didn't immediately flag. This taught me to be more critical of inherited patterns and that just because something exists doesn't mean it's working. It also reinforced the value of user testing in uncovering issues that familiarity can hide.
2. Designing for competing priorities
With multiple stakeholders involved, each team brought different priorities that needed visibility in the same space. This required balancing business needs without degrading the user experience.
I learned how to advocate for user clarity while still accommodating business goals, making intentional tradeoffs rather than trying to surface everything equally.
3. Navigation is strategy, not just structure
Redesigning the account menu shifted my perspective from organizing links to shaping behavior. The structure influenced what users noticed, prioritized, and ultimately used.
I learned that navigation is a strategic tool, it doesn't just help users find things, it guides what they engage with and how they move through the product.