Creating a state-of-the-art experience for Benu pharmacies

A few years ago, BENU approached us to take over the development of a mobile app that was nearing completion. After launching the app successfully, listening to customer feedback and collecting new ideas for the mobile app, we revisited our collaboration with an even more ambitious goal - implementing a robust e-commerce solution into the native apps and developing features that would help their customers manage their medication intake.

In partnership with BENU, we believed that empowering customers with the convenience of purchasing products and managing electronic drug prescriptions directly through the mobile app would not only elevate customer satisfaction but also drive a substantial surge in sales through digital channels for the client.

The customers of BENU are a large and diverse group, both in customer behaviour and demographic. Since BENU is the biggest pharmacy network in Central Europe, the user base we worked with included people in all walks of life, spanning from young parents, working professionals, people with disabilities and the elderly. This fact dictated our approach to designing the interface. We focused on helping the users execute complex flows in a few interactions and we aimed for the app to feel light and open, even though we worked with an unusually wide product catalogue on the background.

When it comes to shopping for medication and medical devices, there was an opportunity on the market to provide a one-stop-shop for customers to buy products, manage electronic prescriptions, find nearby pharmacies and manage their medication intake. The new app allows people to have all their medication-related information in one place.

In the early stages of redesigning the mobile app, we embarked on a thorough exploration of different approaches. We pondered over the possibilities – should we preserve parts of the existing app and build new features on top, or would it be best to start fresh? Moreover, we needed to address essential technical updates in the codebase. These questions were crucial to shaping the structure and information architecture of the new product.

After conducting several workshops and discovery sessions with the client, we arrived at a well-informed decision. We chose to retain the existing features while incorporating fresh elements and wrap it all in a new visual design.

Once we had the final structure defined, we dived into designing solutions that would address user problems and opportunities. An iterative and intensive collaboration with our client led to the creation of a design prototype, supported by a custom, scalable design library.

After creating the new design, we needed to ensure that it was fine-tuned and error-free. Additionally, while designing buying flows, we created two different variants and were unsure which flow performed better. Therefore, the next step was to have users try out the new design, analyze their experience and obtain the necessary insights. We created a functional prototype of the new design that simulated the standard use of an app and planned the user research.

The first goal of user research was to find out whether the new design is easy to use and has satisfying user experience. The ideal method for this is to conduct qualitative user testing with five users. This allows us to observe users as they interact with the prototype, accomplish their goals, and provide their reactions and feedback. According to the data, we selected pharmacy customers who are mostly between 25 and 55 years old and have Czech nationality. This method can identify over 80% of the usability issues with the design that affect a third of users.

The qualitative testings provided us around 120 user insights about user behaviour, positive reactions, problems and tips for improvement. Since the deadline to create the first version of the application was near, we needed to prioritize the findings based on what we could implement in a short period of time. In the end, we end up with 3 “low hanging fruit” areas of improvement that provided big value for the user experience and were easy to implement.

The journey of working closely with BENU on this project proved both rewarding and challenging. Right from the outset, we sensed a genuine commitment from the client to do things the right way, embrace our expertise, and above all, listen to feedback from real users. This shared dedication acted as our guiding star, steering the entire project team towards a clear goal – to craft an exceptional experience for app users.