Skillset
Evolving integral flows within a changing John Lewis platform
Overview
At a Glance
I worked across authentication and checkout to reduce friction, increase account adoption and improve revenue performance across the John Lewis platform.
This took place during the rollout of a new Joyfully Bold brand, adding additional complexity. The challenge was to evolve critical journeys and customer behaviour while aligning to a changing visual system and preserving the familiarity customers relied on.
The Challenge: Small pain points. Big consequences.
Authentication and checkout sit at the highest-risk points of the experience. Small issues here directly affect completion, support demand and customer confidence.
Key problems:
High guest checkout usage limiting long-term value
Frequent password reset issues, particularly among older users
Multi-step sign-up creating friction
Low adoption of faster payment options
Missed opportunities to increase basket value
At the same time, the platform was undergoing a full brand refresh. Customer feedback showed strong resistance to change, with many users relying on familiarity and habit.
The focus was to improve performance without destabilising behaviour.
Involvement
Role and collaboration
I worked across authentication, checkout and loyalty exploration, collaborating with product, engineering, brand, marketing and design system teams.
Key contributions:
Restructured authentication and sign-up logic
Introduced post-checkout account strategy
Embedded revenue opportunities within checkout
Balanced behavioural change with customer familiarity
Delivered journey improvements within an evolving brand system
(↑) Authentication flows
Authentication: Reducing friction and increasing account adoption
The authentication journey was restructured to remove barriers and encourage account creation:
Introduced email link sign-in (passwordless access)
Reduced sign-up to two screen
Moved account creation to post-checkout
Clarified guest vs account value
These changes shifted account creation to a lower-risk moment and reduced cognitive effort. The work altered flow logic and entry strategy, not just the interface.
(↑) Email account sign up journey
(↑) Checkout confirmation (before and after)
Checkout: Improving performance without disrupting behaviour
Checkout improvements focused on clarity, speed and commercial opportunity while maintaining familiar structure.
Refined hierarchy and form structure
Express pay options. and Pay Later integration
Embedded up-sell components
Accessibility improvements
Familiar layouts were intentionally preserved to stabilise behaviour while improving outcomes.
(↑) Sign up prompt post checkout
Designing within a moving system
All journey changes were delivered during the Bold brand rollout.
This introduced additional constraints:
Evolving visual foundations
Cross-functional alignment across brand, product and engineering
Alignment with a developing design system
Behavioural change and visual change were managed separately. Core flow improvements were prioritised first, with brand layered progressively through components, typography and colour.
This allowed functional evolution without compounding disruption.
(↑) Loyalty exploration
Loyalty exploration
Alongside core journeys, I explored early concepts for a cross-brand loyalty experience spanning John Lewis and Waitrose.
The challenge was to encourage engagement across both brands while creating a neutral experience that felt familiar to customers of each.
The approach focused on:
A shared palette built from overlapping brand greens
JLP typography as a consistent foundation
Contextual imagery to reflect each brand
A minimal dashboard designed to avoid brand dominance
Concepts were presented to senior stakeholders and approved for further exploration.
Conclusion
The impact: Real improvements, quietly delivered.
18% increase in account sign-ups
Increased use of express checkout (Apple Pay, Pay Later)
No increase in cart abandonment despite significant journey changes
New revenue enabled through up-sell components
Improved brand consistency and scalability
Loyalty concepts progressed following senior stakeholder approval.
(↑) Annotation - highlighting opportunity from audit
The takeaway: Trust is earned in the details.
This project focused on changing customer behaviour without breaking the habits that built trust. The complexity wasn’t just redesigning journeys, it was improving performance while the platform itself was changing.
Other work
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