Helping people make confident wellness decisions in moments of uncertainty

ACE™ is the 3M brand for muscle and joint wellness products. The business was looking for ways to grow sales in the retail space while improving the shopping experience for people trying to choose the right support product for their needs.

The challenge was that wellness product selection often happens in a moment of uncertainty. Shoppers may be dealing with discomfort, injury, recovery, or prevention, but they may not know which product type, size, level of support, or use case is right for them. In a retail environment, that uncertainty can make the shopping experience feel confusing, overwhelming, or easy to abandon.

My team identified unmet user needs across the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase journey, then proposed digital solutions to improve the overall experience and support more confident product selection.

Designing a product selector around confidence, clarity, and support

To create a meaningful retail solution, we needed to understand both the business goal and the emotional reality of the shopper. This was not just a product comparison problem. It was a decision-support problem in a health and wellness context.

The research and design work was guided by three principles:

1. Start with the shopper’s uncertainty. We needed to understand what people were unsure about before, during, and after choosing a muscle or joint wellness product.
2. Connect product information to real needs. The experience needed to help users match symptoms, body areas, activities, and support needs to the right product options.
3. Design across the full retail journey. The opportunity was not limited to one screen or one feature. We considered the experience from pre-purchase research to in-store selection and post-purchase use.

My role was to connect research, strategy, and experience design

I worked across research, strategy, and early experience design to help the team move from user needs to concept direction.

My responsibilities included competitive analysis, user interviews, user journey mapping, stakeholder workshop facilitation, creating wireframes and prototypes, and conducting concept testing.

I also facilitated internal stakeholder workshops to bring the team along with customer learning, align on the most important opportunity areas, and generate solution directions grounded in research.

Part 1: Understanding the retail and competitive landscape

We started with a direct competitor analysis in the retail space. I mapped competitor offerings and features across price points to understand how products were positioned and where there might be white space for ACE™ to differentiate its product line.

This helped the team understand not only what products existed, but how shoppers were being asked to compare them. It gave us an early view into where the category was crowded, where information was difficult to interpret, and where a digital selector could provide more clarity.

Part 2: Learning from users and mapping the journey

We conducted qualitative research with users to understand their current experience using and purchasing muscle and joint wellness products in retail stores.

Based on the research, the team developed personas around user needs and behaviors. We then mapped the customer journey for a chosen persona to document the shopping experience, identify pain points, and locate where a new solution could add value.

Journey mapping helped us see that the opportunity was broader than product discovery. Users needed help interpreting their needs, narrowing options, understanding fit, and feeling confident that they were choosing the right product.

Part 3: Aligning stakeholders and generating concepts

I facilitated stakeholder workshops to present the research findings and customer journey map. These workshops helped internal teams build shared understanding of shopper pain points and align on where the experience should focus.

Using research inputs, I led brainstorming sessions with the project team to generate possible solutions and align on the path forward. This helped move the work from findings to actionable product and experience concepts.

Part 4: Wireframing, prototyping, and testing the product selector

Taking the outputs from the workshop, the team created low-fidelity wireframes across the holistic experience. We then built working prototypes to test the user flow.

We tested the first prototype with users on a staged planogram to mimic a retail store shopping environment. This allowed us to evaluate whether the product selector supported the actual context in which shoppers would be making decisions.

The testing helped us understand how users moved through the selector, whether the flow helped them narrow choices, and where the experience needed to provide clearer guidance or reassurance.

The project helped the business see how digital tools could support a more holistic retail experience for health and wellness shoppers.

By moving quickly from research to visualized concepts and prototypes, the team was able to show how ACE™ could support users across pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase moments.