Redesigning Checkout for faster, clearer transactions
Redesigned Tulip’s Point of Sale (POS) application with a focus on the checkout and payment experience. The redesign reflects how store associates actually work, it simplified a crowded interface, and created a more scalable checkout experience for both in-store and delivery orders in the mass market and luxury retail space.
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
TEAM
6 Developers
1 Product Manager
1 QA Engineer
CLIENTS
Michael Kors
Coach
Purolator
Revolve
SSENSE
PLATFORM
iOS and Android
PROBLEM
Checkout wasn't organized around how associates actually work
Tulip’s POS had been designed around luxury retail, where associates and customers browse together and the catalog acts as the primary landing page. As the product expanded toward higher-volume retail, that model created friction: the payment page was buried, search lived on a separate screen, and the layout struggled with large baskets and transaction-heavy workflows. The redesign needed to shift the experience from browse-first selling toward a faster, checkout-first model. This became more important as Tulip started to move away from targeting luxury clients and moved towards mass market retailers.
GOALS
Make Checkout the primary working surface
Bring checkout closer to the center of the POS experience so associates can move quickly between finding products, reviewing the basket and completing payment.
Support larger, faster commerce transactions
Create a layout that scales better for larger basket sizes, with more room for order details and less screen space dedicated to oversized payment tiles.
Create a clearer information hierarchy
Condense infrequently used cart modification actions—such as adding discounts and commissioned associates —into a secondary modal, freeing up space for actions associates need most during checkout.
Make product search easier to access
Bring search closer to the checkout workflow so associates can quickly find and add items without navigating to a separate part of the app.
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SOLUTION
A checkout first POS
I redesigned checkout around the needs of higher-volume retail, with a focus on faster transactions, larger baskets and higher average order value. Search moved directly into checkout to make adding products easier, the cart was given more room to scale, and infrequently used order actions were consolidated into a modal to reduce clutter.
BEFORE
The catalog was the landing view, reflecting a browse-first retail experience where associates moved from product discovery into checkout.
AFTER
Checkout became the primary landing page, giving associates immediate access to search, scanning, the cart and payment so they could start and complete transactions from one central workspace.
BEFORE
Cart items were compressed into a narrow panel, making larger baskets difficult to scan, while low-frequency actions such as discounts and other cart modifications competed for the same limited space.
AFTER
The checkout layout gives the basket significantly more room, making multi-item orders easier to review at a glance. Secondary cart actions were consolidated to reduce clutter, while an AI-powered search bar lets associates quickly find products, customers or existing orders without leaving checkout.
BEFORE
Payment options dominated the screen throughout checkout, competing with the cart for attention and making the experience feel visually busy during an already high-stakes task.
AFTER
Payment methods were moved into a focused modal that appears only when the customer is ready to pay, reducing competing information and helping associates concentrate on completing the transaction accurately.
BEFORE
Low-frequency cart actions like discounts, tax exemptions and associate changes lived directly in the checkout panel, competing with product details for limited space.
AFTER
Cart modifications were consolidated into a dedicated modal, keeping the main checkout focused on the basket. Each action then opens into its own full-page flow, giving associates a clearer space to complete one task at a time.
Learnings
Bring technical dependencies in sooner
Checkout touched several established areas of the product. Mapping those dependencies earlier would make it easier to distinguish interaction improvements from changes requiring deeper architectural work.
Customization as part of the product strategy
The redesign focused on creating a clearer default experience, but a stronger long-term solution may have been to make parts of the POS configurable by retailer. Things like navigation, checkout actions, payment methods and cart tools could adapt to different store formats without requiring separate product experiences.
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