Wolseley Express Redesign
Location
Burlington, Canada
Team Size
4 - 7
Areas
B2B | Ecommerce | Wholesale Distribution
Date
June 2023 to December 2025 (31 months)
At Wolseley Canada, I helped drive the digital transformation of Wolseley Express. I worked on overhauling the procurement journey for a 150k+ SKU catalog and played a key role in building the design system that unified our web and mobile e-commerce experience for thousands of professional contractors.
Our Team
Sharmily - Senior Product Manager
Padma - Product Owner
Christine - Business Analysts
Chaithan - Business Analysts
Danish Khan - Product Design Lead
Wilson Fung - Product Designer
Pooja - UX Research
What I Did
UX Design
A/B Testing
UX Research
User Testing
Design Sprints
Build Design System
AODA Compliance
Design Outcome
Website sales revenue increased 14.29% over 1.5 years
Cut filter-related complaints by 60.87% by leveraging Medallia data
The Problem
Legacy Transition: The existing brick-and-mortar model was struggling to keep pace with the rapid industry shift toward e-commerce.
Pandemic Pressure: COVID-19 triggered a massive surge in online traffic, which exposed critical flaws in the site’s infrastructure and led to a spike in customer complaints.
UX & Tech Debt: An outdated tech stack and fragmented user experience created significant friction, making it difficult for users to navigate a complex B2B catalog.
Competitive Risk: Without a modern digital platform, the brand risked losing its loyal customer base to more agile, digital-native competitors.
“In our redesign process, delighting and fullfilling our key customers needs was our first priority. We try to make sure every design make sense to all of them.”
ReDesign Process
Site Audit: Our redesign process began with a deep dive into the site’s friction points. By synthesizing user interviews with qualitative feedback from Medallia, we pinpointed critical pain points in the user journey. This data-backed approach allowed us to identify and prioritize the high-impact pages requiring immediate intervention.
Research: Once we identified our target pages, we launched a comprehensive research phase. We conducted a competitive gap analysis against industry leaders and leveraged design patterns from our parent company, Ferguson. To ensure our solutions were rooted in user psychology, we cross-referenced our concepts with Baymard Institute and Nielsen Norman Group (NNg) global best practices.
Design: We had held 5 day design sprints with Goal Setting, Brainstorm & Ideation, Synthesize & Vote, Prototype, Validate (present to stakeholders and our user). We leveraged our research and communicated with our development team to ensure the designs were possible.
Measure: Post-design, we implemented a rigorous validation phase using A/B testing and unmoderated user testing with both existing customers and target demographics. By synthesizing these quantitative and qualitative data points, we iteratively refined the UI to resolve remaining friction, while building a deeper understanding of user behavior to inform our long-term design roadmap.
Product Listing Page (PLP)/ Search Result Page (SRP)
We modernized the interface with a refined visual language, optimized the filtering logic for better discoverability, and enhanced content scannability. A key focus was improving the clarity of complex pricing, specifically for bulk and tiered shipping multiples.
Product Detail Page (PDP)
We modernized the PDP interface by establishing a refined visual language and a clear information hierarchy. By strategically redesigning the promotional flags and status badges, we increased the visibility of key purchasing options and optimized text placement to prioritize critical product data and calls-to-action.
Homepage Redesign
The homepage was redesigned to drive higher engagement through a refined visual hierarchy and targeted product promotion. We optimized the taxonomy and category entry points to help users navigate efficiently, while dedicated seasonal modules were implemented to highlight trending inventory. We also centralized customer help resources to reduce friction and build trust.