Transforming high-intent product discovery into seamless retailer appointments.
EMBEDDED APPOINTMENT REQUESTS
MY ROLE:
Digital Product Designer
TIMELINE:
2 Months
PLATFORM:
Responsive Web
OUTCOME:
Increased monthly appointment requests by 100% over the previous record.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Brides frequently begin their dress-shopping journey online before visiting an authorized retailer. However, requesting an appointment required leaving the shopping experience, navigating to a separate Store Locator, selecting a retailer, and completing a form.
I redesigned the journey by embedding retailer discovery and appointment booking directly into product exploration. The new experience preserved browsing context, captured the dress that inspired the request, and contributed to a 100% increase in monthly appointment requests over the previous record.
THE CONTEXT
THE PROBLEM
of users who began the appointment journey abandoned it before submitting a request.
80%
Justin Alexander successfully drove users toward high-intent actions such as Find a Store and Request an Appointment, but analytics revealed a major conversion breakdown before form completion.
Leadership challenged the product team to identify why users were dropping off and improve completed appointment requests without disrupting the shopping journey.
EXISTING USER JOURNEY
PAIN POINTS:
Interrupted momentum: users left the dress that motivated the appointment.
Fragmented flow: retailer discovery and appointment booking became a separate task.
Missing retailer context: stores received the request without automatically knowing which dress inspired it.
PROJECT GOALS
⚡ Reduce friction by allowing users to request appointments without leaving their shopping journey.
🎯 Increase appointment completions by streamlining the path from product discovery to appointment request.
🛍️ Preserve shopping momentum by keeping users engaged with the dresses they're actively exploring.
🤝 Improve retailer preparation by capturing users' favorite styles and providing richer context before appointments.
🧩 Build a scalable booking experience by designing a reusable appointment widget that could extend beyond Product Detail Pages to support the entire website.
THE OPPORTUNITY
The strongest purchase intent was not on the Store Locator. It was the moment a bride found a dress she wanted to try on.
Requiring users to leave the Product Detail Page interrupted the emotional momentum that had motivated the appointment. This reframed the challenge: instead of only improving the downstream form, we needed to preserve the context that created the intent.
🎯 Increase appointment completions | ⚡ Reduce friction | 🛍️ Preserve shopping momentum
Turning browsing behavior into retailer context.
Keeping the appointment request connected to the Product Detail Page created an opportunity to automatically pass the viewed dress to the selected retailer as a “favorite.” This gave consultants additional context before the appointment and supported a more personalized in-store experience.
🤝 Improve retailer preparation
THE DESIGN PROCESS
INSPIRATION
I looked beyond bridal retail to understand how ecommerce experiences preserve momentum during high-intent actions. Slide-out shopping carts stood out because they allow users to review and complete an action without leaving the page. I saw an opportunity to adapt this familiar interaction model to retailer discovery and appointment booking.
Design principle: Complete a high-intent action without losing browsing context.
⚡ Reduce friction | 🛍️ Preserve shopping momentum
DESIGN DIRECTIONS
Rather than relying on one feature to solve the entire funnel, I identified three complementary opportunities across the appointment journey.
1. Increase CTA Visibility
Surface the retailer information users need to confidently evaluate and select a store.
🎯 Increase appointment completions
2. Improve Store Discovery
Make appointment entry points easier to identify at moments of product interest.
🎯 Increase appointment completions
3. Embedded Widget
Bring retailer discovery and appointment requests into the current browsing context.
⚡ Reduce friction | 🎯 Increase appointment completions | 🛍️ Preserve shopping momentum | 🤝 Improve retailer preparation | 🧩 Build a scalable booking experience
The final experience combined all three directions into a cohesive appointment-booking strategy.
Turning product interest into retailer context
CONSTRAINT:
Translating a full-page experience into a narrow interface
The challenge was not simply shrinking the existing Store Locator. The smaller viewport required me to determine which retailer details were essential at a glance and which could be revealed progressively.
SCALING DECISION:
From PDP feature to sitewide capability
In collaboration with the Digital Product Owner, the PDP side panel evolved into a floating widget that could be accessed throughout the site. This expanded appointment booking beyond individual style pages while preserving contextual tracking based on the user’s location in the journey.
⚡ Reduce friction | 🧩 Build a scalable booking experience
THE FINAL SOLUTION
NEW JOURNEY
Increased CTA Visibility
Strengthened the appointment CTA hierarchy so users could more clearly understand the next step after finding a dress.
Improved Store Discovery
Reorganized retailer information to support quicker comparison and decision-making before beginning an appointment request.
PREVIOUS
NEW
Embedded Side Widget
1. Preserve the dress-shopping context
⚡ Reduce friction | 🛍️ Preserve shopping momentum
The dress, not the booking flow, is the primary conversion driver. Rather than redirecting users away from the Product Detail Page, I designed an embedded side widget that kept the dress visible throughout the booking experience, preserving the emotional connection that motivated the appointment in the first place.
2. Maintain spatial store discovery
🎯 Increase appointment completions
The navigable map remains visible so users can understand retailer proximity while reviewing results.
3. Apply progressive disclosure
⚡ Reduce friction | 🎯 Increase appointment completions
Store cards display essential information first, while expandable sections reveal additional details without overwhelming the constrained layout.
4. Request an appointment in context
⚡ Reduce friction | 🎯 Increase appointment completions | 🛍️ Preserve shopping momentum
Users can begin the appointment request from the selected retailer without losing the original dress.
5. Enrich retailer context
🤝 Improve retailer preparation
Appointment requests automatically included the viewed dress as a "favorite," giving retailers valuable context before the consultation. By understanding which style inspired the appointment, consultants could prepare relevant inventory ahead of the bride's visit, creating a more personalized in-store experience.
DESKTOP
MOBILE
Scalable Floating Widget
⚡ Reduce friction | 🛍️ Preserve shopping momentum | 🧩 Build a scalable booking experience
The final concept expanded beyond the Product Detail Page into a persistent floating entry point that could be placed across the website. This allowed users to access store discovery and appointment booking from multiple stages of the journey without navigating away from their current page.
DESKTOP
MOBILE
THE IMPACT
What the Product Accomplished
+100%
Monthly appointment requests compared with the previous record.
The combined redesign of appointment entry points, store discovery, and embedded booking contributed to the strongest monthly appointment-request performance recorded at the time.
CUSTOMER IMPACT
Preserved browsing context
Reduced navigation interruption
Made appointments accessible across the journey
RETAILER IMPACT
Received the viewed dress as a favorite
Gained additional context before the consultation
PRODUCT IMPACT
Established a reusable booking pattern
Extended from a PDP feature into a sitewide capability
What I Learned:
🧠 Design for moments of intent, not just complete flows. The greatest opportunity was preserving the motivation created when a user discovered a dress she wanted to try on.
🔄 Familiar interaction patterns can solve new problems. Adapting the slide-out-cart model helped make embedded appointment booking feel intuitive.
🤝 Cross-functional collaboration expands product value. Working with Product and Data Science turned a navigation improvement into a richer customer-to-retailer data exchange.
🧭 Cohesive journeys often require multiple interventions. CTA visibility, retailer discovery, and embedded booking addressed different friction points but produced the strongest result together.