Role: Lead Designer ∣ Teams: UX Design, Product, Analytics, Creative ∣ Timeline: 3 months
I defined the App onboarding strategy, aligned analytics and lifecycle teams around a phased opt-in framework. I established reusable onboarding patterns across both brands Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, improving opt-in rate for location services by 26%, push notifications by 19%, and App activity tracking by 15%. These improvements strengthened adoption of downstream revenue-driving features such as personalized recommendations, store discovery, targeted messaging, and promotional engagement. The onboarding process provides the opportunity to enable key settings that would benefit both the user and the business. For Macy’s and Bloomingdales, enabling location services, push notifications and App activity tracking were key so the user could utilize strategic features.
Increased
Location Services
↑ 26%
Increased
Push Notifications
↑ 19%
Increased
App Activity Tracking
↑ 15%
Context and the problem
The onboarding process provides the opportunity to enable key settings that would benefit both the user and the business. For Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, enabling location services, push notifications and App activity tracking were key so the user could utilize strategic features such as “Store Locator, Ads, Product Recommendations, Notifications, etc.” The existing flow had several problems. As a result, permission opt-in rates underperformed, limiting the effectiveness of personalization, store-based experiences, and marketing engagement strategies.
Key Issues
– Permission requests lacked context.
– Users encountered interruptions later in the experience when permissions were required mid-task.
– The onboarding felt lengthy and disconnected from the shopping experience.
Discovery &
Research
To better understand the friction points in the existing experience, I partnered closely with analytics and customer support teams
Quantitative Analysis
We analyzed exit rates, drop-off points, rage-click behavior, permission denial rates, time-to-completion metrics. The data showed users were abandoning the onboarding flow early and often dismissing permissions without understanding their value.
Qualitative Analysis
I reviewed customer service feedback and recurring user pain points related to interruptive, permission requests, confusing onboarding steps, lack of clarity around feature benefits.
As a strategic synthesis, I mapped user needs against business priorities to identify where alignment existed and where friction emerged:
Business goals
→ Increase adoption of key permissions tied to revenue-driving features
→ Reduce onboarding abandonment and friction
→ Create a scalable onboarding framework adaptable across both brands
→ Improve operational efficiency between product, engineering, and creative teams
User goals
→ Reach the shopping experience faster
→ Understand the value behind requested permissions
→ Avoid disruptive permission requests
Strategy &
UX Principles
Through discovery, I identified three strategic onboarding principles and translated them into a framework that aligned and guided design decisions. This approach helped shift onboarding from a compliance-driven flow into a more intentional product entry experience.
1
Get users to the product
as quickly as possible
2
Prioritizing only the permissions critical to downstream experiences
3
Clear value communication
around permissions
Strategic mapping
Using these principles, I mapped where permissions create the highest product value, prioritizing high-impact opportunities across the experience that improve both user outcomes and business performance.
Measurable success
I partnered with analytics before implementation to ensure the experience could be evaluated through measurable outcomes enabling the team to measure onboarding performance improvements, validate permission strategy decisions and Identify future optimization opportunities.
KPIs
→ Location services opt-in rate
→ Push notification opt-in rate
→ activity tracking opt-in rate
→ Onboarding completion time
→ Drop-off and exit rates
Cross-Functional Leadership
A core part of the project involved organizational alignment between the UX, product, analytics and creative teams. This helped reduce ambiguity during development, prevent duplicated work across brands, surface stakeholder concerns early and maintain momentum during implementation. The collaboration model also improved communication between digital product teams and creative stakeholders, which had previously operated more independently.
Alignment Plan
→ Design reviews
→ Alignment meetings
→ Working sessions
→ Documentation and decision tracking
Design execution
Bloomingdale’s flow
Macy’s flow
Outcome
The redesigned onboarding experience delivered measurable improvements across both brands and created operational efficiencies by enabling a scalable dual-brand onboarding model that reduced future design and engineering overhead.
Increased Location Services Opt-in Rate
↑ 26%
Increased Push Notifications Opt-in Rate
↑ 19%
Increased App Activity Tracking Opt-in Rate
↑ 15%
*Data available only for Macy’s
Reflection
My role
As Lead Designer, I owned the UX strategy and collaborated in the end-to-end design execution for the initiative. A significant part of the work involved balancing competing priorities between business stakeholders seeking higher opt-in rates, users expecting speed and minimal interruption, creative teams advocating for stronger brand storytelling, and engineering teams requiring scalable implementation patterns.
My responsabilities
→ Defining the UX strategy
→ Leading cross-functional alignment across product, analytics, engineering, and creative stakeholders
→ Facilitating working sessions and design reviews between Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s teams
→ Establishing scalable UX principles that could support both brands
→ Driving prioritization decisions around permissions and onboarding sequencing
→ Ensuring measurable success criteria were built into the experience from the start
Learnings
This project reinforced the importance of viewing onboarding as part of a larger ecosystem rather than as the sole opportunity to request permissions.
One major learning was that permission strategy should extend beyond onboarding and become more contextual throughout the product experience. Users are often focused on reaching the product quickly during the first launch, which can reduce engagement with permission requests regardless of design quality.
The project also highlighted the importance of involving brand and creative partners early in product definition. Because onboarding is often the user’s first interaction with a brand, visual storytelling and brand perception play a critical role in shaping trust and engagement from the beginning.