Kinya McDowell

Challenge

Restaurants were missing orders due to fax machine failures, paper outages, and illegible handwritten orders during peak hours.

Approach

500+ hours of ethnographic field research inside restaurant kitchens.

Key Findings

• Fax paper outages during peak hours caused missed orders with no digital backup
• Smudged fax paper led to transcription errors and wrong items
• Desktop-tied workflows prevented staff from managing orders at prep stations

Impact

Pioneered the tablet-first order management design pattern that became the industry standard.

Challenge

Grainger's B2B registration flow had unclear barriers preventing business customers from completing account setup.

Approach

2 weeks of in-store intercept testing with 20+ real customers using an Axure RP clickable prototype inside Grainger retail stores.

8 Critical Barriers

• Low computer literacy among trade customers
• Customers didn't know Grainger had a website
• Registration felt unnecessary — in-store was working fine
• B2B vs. B2C workflow mismatch
• Trust & security concerns
• Physical catalogue dependency
• Job elimination fear
• Catalogue-to-digital transition friction

Impact

48-hour turnaround on findings. 100% team alignment. Immediate design changes to the registration flow.

Overview

4-year embedded research partnership across 8 product areas: Fuel Hub, Self-Checkout (OSCO), In-App Barcode, Make My Day Game, Speedway Integration, 7Rewards Loyalty, Deals & Rewards, and Wallet & Payment Methods.

Key Findings

• Fuel Hub: Customers confused about Price Lock — didn't know if they'd pay the locked price if fuel prices dropped
• OSCO: Poor placement meant most customers never noticed the machine; permission confusion stopped those who did
• In-App Barcode: Customers preferred phone number entry over scanning the barcode
• Make My Day: Win/loss iconography indistinguishable
• Gold Pass: Trial gaming, benefits not universally applicable, desire for personalization
• Deals & Rewards: Personalization gap vs. competitors; deal abandonment at checkout
• Wallet: Onboarding drop-off, payment method confusion, dead-end error states
• Speedway: Customers wanted unified loyalty across both brands

Impact

Shaped product strategy across multiple teams, maintained continuity through a Waterfall-to-Agile transition, and established ResearchOps infrastructure.

Challenge

The Octane Self-Checkout (OSCO) project aimed to evaluate why in-store self-checkout adoption was lower than expected across multiple store formats.

Approach

In-store observational research and post-transaction intercept interviews at two Holland, MI locations. Competitor store visit for benchmarking. Paired with mobile app usability testing across the full browse → deal → checkout → loyalty earn journey.

Key Findings

• At one store, only 9 of ~80 customers used OSCO — most never saw it
• The second store saw zero OSCO usage due to poor placement alone
• Customers who noticed the machine weren't sure they were allowed to use it
• The app had no "you're at the store" moment — the journey was fully disconnected
• Competitor analysis confirmed better placement and contextual prompts could lift adoption significantly

Impact

Reframed the product question from machine usability to journey continuity. OSCO placement and in-app awareness added to the product roadmap.

Challenge

7-Eleven had a fully functional pickup and delivery experience inside its app. Customers were browsing daily. Almost none were buying. The product team framed it as a checkout problem. Research revealed it was a discovery problem — customers didn't know ordering was possible at all.

Approach

Five parallel research streams: Mixpanel funnel analysis + Medallia feedback signals, usability testing on the browse/ordering flow, in-depth interviews with non-purchasers, a non-purchaser survey for scale validation, and a competitive audit of pickup/delivery UX across Wawa, Casey's, Sheetz, and major delivery platforms.

Core Finding

Customers understood the app as a deals and rewards tool — full stop. Pickup and delivery weren't part of their mental model. The feature wasn't hidden; it just wasn't where customers were already looking. Funnel data confirmed drop-off was happening before customers ever reached the ordering flow.

What Changed

• Dedicated pickup & delivery entry point added to primary navigation
• App IA restructured to surface ordering alongside deals and rewards
• Checkout flow simplified to reduce steps to purchase completion

Strategic Reframe

Research shifted the product team's investment from checkout optimization to discovery architecture — addressing the upstream problem that made downstream friction irrelevant.