Reimagining Grainger's Cutomer Set up Form

At Grainger branches, employees create customer accounts face-to-face on screens mirrored to the customer. I redesigned the Customer Setup Form around the moments where that collaboration became a privacy risk—protecting sensitive entry while keeping customers part of the process.

TIMELINE

3 months (Jan 2025-Aug 2025)

ROLE

UX Design Intern

CLIENT

Grainger

/04

it starts with two screens.

The employee fills out the form while the customer sees the same screen.

EMPLOYEE

CUSTOMER

02 - CONTEXT

one form, mirrored across two screens.

At a Grainger branch, account setup happens face-to-face, with the employee’s form mirrored onto a customer-facing monitor.

THE CATCH

That works—until the information on screen becomes private.

The safeguard depended on one thing:

the employee remembering to turn the monitor off.

Privacy depended on employees consistently following the proper procedures.

Employees were expected to turn off the customer-facing monitor when entering sensitive information. However, during my branch visit, I observed this was not consistently practiced.

03 - PROBLEM

FOR THE USER

↑0%

TASK COMPLETION

Critical Customer Setup Form tasks completed successfully during testing.

FOR THE WORKFLOW

↓0%

FLOW SIZE

Fewer steps after simplifying the privacy flow through iteration.

FOR THE PRODUCT TEAM

↑0

UX BUGS

UX issues identified and picked up by engineering.

THE EXPOSURE

private data, still in view.

THE INTERRUPTION

privacy came at the cost of flow.

THE REVIEW

no clear moment to check.

Here’s what an employee
at the branch said

“

I know I need to turn it off. I’m just doing five other things at the same time.

”

06 - TURNING POINT

from manual protection to a guided flow.

The easiest fix was another reminder, but observation revealed the real issue was that privacy still depended on employees noticing it and acting at exactly the right moment. So, I moved privacy into the workflow itself.

04 - APPROACH

understand the behavior before redesigning the screen.

I did not start with another warning. I first needed to understand why the existing safeguard broke down in practice.

MY APPROACH

05 - RESEARCH

01: auditing the existing experience.

I audited the form to find where sensitive information was exposed and privacy relied on employee memory. At first, the solution seemed simple: add another reminder.

HOVER OVER A BLUE POINT TO EXPLORE THE AUDIT→

02: cutting the flow.

My first flow added too many steps in an effort to make privacy safer. I simplified it to keep privacy built in while making the experience faster and easier for employees.

50%

fewer steps in the final flow

INITIAL FLOW

too many decisions

CUTTING THE NOISE

SIMPLIFIED FLOW

50% fewer steps

fewer decisions · clearer path

07 - DECISIONS

the details mattered most at the moments where behavior had to change.

I focused iteration around two moments where behavior needed to change.

01

DESIGN DECISION 01

make the privacy moment impossible to miss.

I tested how explicit the monitor-off message needed to be so employees would actively respond instead of passively overlooking it.

DESIGN DECISION 01 Final — Action-first overlay

WHY THIS WON →

Privacy needed to feel like a step in the workflow, not another piece of guidance.

02

DESIGN DECISION 02

turn the final screen into a review, not another form.

I simplified the read-only experience so customers could verify information quickly without navigating the full editable form again.

DESIGN DECISION 02 Final — Structured review

WHY THIS WON →

The customer needed a clear moment to verify information—not another version of the form to navigate.

08 - FINAL FLOW

A guided privacy flow that separates sensitive input from customer input

Enhance your project showcases with tailored descriptions that provide context and highlight key aspects of your process.

Step 1

Firstly, a branch member receives a notification to turn off the monitor before they continue to the form.

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

10 - REFLECTION

the screen was only half the work.

WHAT I LEARNED

This project taught me to design inside the messier parts of enterprise UX — security constraints, branch behavior, engineering tradeoffs, and business risk.

FIELD TESTED

REAL WORKFLOW

BEYOND THE SCREEN

THE PROCESS

it wasn’t linear.

01

The process wasn’t linear.

02

An audit gave me one answer; field research challenged it.

03

Concepts got cut. Flows got smaller.

04

Decisions got sharper once I stopped treating the Figma file as the whole system.

WHAT STUCK

That’s what I took from Grainger: good product design has to survive the real workflow, not just the prototype.

TAKEAWAY

Design for the system around the screen.

FOR THE USER

↑0%

TASK COMPLETION

Critical Customer Setup Form tasks completed successfully during testing.

FOR THE WORKFLOW

↓0%

FLOW SIZE

Fewer steps after simplifying the privacy flow through iteration.

FOR THE PRODUCT TEAM

↑0

UX BUGS

UX issues identified and picked up by engineering.

09 - IMPACT

THE SOLUTION

A guided privacy flow that separates sensitive input from customer input

Enhance your project showcases with tailored descriptions that provide context and highlight key aspects of your process.

Step 1

Firstly, a branch member receives a notification to turn off the monitor before they continue to the form.

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

/04

it starts with two screens.

The employee fills out the form while the customer sees the same screen.

EMPLOYEE

CUSTOMER

02 CONTEXT

02 - CONTEXT

one form, mirrored across two screens.

one form, two screens.

one form, mirrored across two screens.

At a Grainger branch, account setup happens face-to-face, with the employee’s form mirrored onto a customer-facing monitor.

THE CATCH

That works—until the information on screen becomes private.

The safeguard depended on one thing:

the employee remembering to turn the monitor off.

03 - PROBLEM

Privacy depended on memory.

Employees knew what they were supposed to do. But in a live customer interaction, protecting information meant noticing the right field and knowing when to bring the customer back in (which was not happening).

This created 3 problems:

private data, still in view.

privacy came at the cost of flow.

no clear moment to check.

Here’s what an employee at the branch said

“

I know I need to turn it off. I’m just doing five other things at the same time.

”

04 - APPROACH

understand the behavior before redesigning the screen.

I did not start with another warning. I first needed to understand why the existing safeguard broke down in practice.

MY APPROACH

05 - RESEARCH

01: auditing the existing experience.

I audited the form to find where sensitive information was exposed and privacy relied on employee memory. At first, the solution seemed simple: add another reminder.

HOVER OVER A BLUE POINT TO EXPLORE THE AUDIT→

02: cutting the flow.

My first flow added too many steps in an effort to make privacy safer. I simplified it to keep privacy built in while making the experience faster and easier for employees.

50%

fewer steps in the final flow

INITIAL FLOW

too many decisions

CUTTING THE NOISE

SIMPLIFIED FLOW

50% fewer steps

fewer decisions · clearer path

03 - THE PROBLEM

Privacy depended on employees consistently following the proper procedures.

Employees were expected to turn off the customer-facing monitor when entering sensitive information. However, during my branch visit, I observed this was not consistently practiced.

THE CHALLENGE

Privacy shouldn't come at the cost of a good customer experience.

So, how might we redesign the workflow to protect sensitive data without disruptions?

Keep It Conversational

Guide employees through privacy steps without interrupting the natural customer interaction.

Reduce Cognitive Load

Make privacy actions simple and intuitive, so employees don’t have to think twice.

Standardize Privacy

Create a consistent privacy workflow that works across every Grainger branch.

Keep It Conversational

Guide employees through privacy steps without interrupting the natural customer interaction.

Reduce Cognitive Load

Make privacy actions simple and intuitive, so employees don’t have to think twice.

Standardize Privacy

Create a consistent privacy workflow that works across every Grainger branch.

THE EXPOSURE

private data, still in view.

THE INTERRUPTION

privacy came at the cost of flow.

THE REVIEW

no clear moment to check.

THE EXPOSURE

private data, still in view.

THE INTERRUPTION

privacy came at the cost of flow.

THE REVIEW

no clear moment to check.

Add project image

06 - TURNING POINT

from manual protection to a guided flow.

06 - TURNING POINT

building privacy into the flow

04 - APPROACH

understand the behavior before redesigning the screen.

I did not start with another warning. I first needed to understand why the existing safeguard broke down in practice.

MY APPROACH

07 - DECISIONS

the details mattered most at the moments where behavior had to change.

make the privacy moment impossible to miss.

I tested how explicit the monitor-off message needed to be so employees would actively respond instead of passively overlooking it.

WHY THIS WON →

Privacy needed to feel like a step in the workflow, not another piece of guidance.

08 - FINAL FLOW

A guided privacy flow that separates sensitive input from customer input

Enhance your project showcases with tailored descriptions that provide context and highlight key aspects of your process.

Step 1

Firstly, a branch member receives a notification to turn off the monitor before they continue to the form.

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

A guided privacy flow that separates sensitive input from customer input

Enhance your project showcases with tailored descriptions that provide context and highlight key aspects of your process.

08 - FINAL FLOW

Step 1

Firstly, a branch member receives a notification to turn off the monitor before they continue to the form.

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

08 - FINAL FLOW

the moments that changed the workflow.

Enhance your project showcases with tailored descriptions that provide context and highlight key aspects of your process.

Step 1

Firstly, a branch member receives a notification to turn off the monitor before they continue to the form.

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

09 - IMPACT

FOR THE USER

↑0%

TASK COMPLETION

Critical Customer Setup Form tasks completed successfully during testing.

FOR THE WORKFLOW

↓0%

FLOW SIZE

Fewer steps after simplifying the privacy flow through iteration.

FOR THE PRODUCT TEAM

↑0

UX BUGS

UX issues identified and picked up by engineering.

10 - REFLECTION

the screen was only half the work.

WHAT I LEARNED

This project taught me to design inside the messier parts of enterprise UX — security constraints, branch behavior, engineering tradeoffs, and business risk.

FIELD TESTED

REAL WORKFLOW

BEYOND THE SCREEN

THE PROCESS

it wasn’t linear.

01

The process wasn’t linear.

02

An audit gave me one answer; field research challenged it.

03

Concepts got cut. Flows got smaller.

04

Decisions got sharper once I stopped treating the Figma file as the whole system.

WHAT STUCK

That’s what I took from Grainger: good product design has to survive the real workflow, not just the prototype.

TAKEAWAY

Design for the system around the screen.

07 - DECISIONS

the details mattered most at the moments where behavior had to change.

make the privacy moment impossible to miss.

I tested how explicit the monitor-off message needed to be so employees would actively respond instead of passively overlooking it.

WHY THIS WON →

Privacy needed to feel like a step in the workflow, not another piece of guidance.

Here’s what an employee at the branch said

“

I know I need to turn it off. I’m just doing five other things at the same time.

”

09 - IMPACT