Reducing Friction Across a Complex Healthcare B2B2C Ecosystem

Responsive Web App & Enterprise Software
MyOasis Ecosystem | Oasis | Sparq

MyOasis is a healthcare commerce platform that connects patients, providers, and business operations within a complex B2B2C ecosystem. As the platform grew, fragmented workflows and inconsistent mobile experiences created friction across commerce and provider operations.

While working together with a PM and a Lead Developer, I led the discovery, experience architecture, and platform strategy
to simplify workflows and establish a scalable foundation for
future growth.

MyOasis is a healthcare commerce platform that connects patients, providers, and business operations within a complex B2B2C ecosystem. As the platform grew, fragmented workflows and inconsistent mobile experiences created friction across commerce and provider operations.

While working together with a PM and a Lead Developer, I led the discovery, experience architecture, and platform strategy to simplify workflows and establish a scalable foundation for future growth.

A mid-fidelity prototype created during discovery to validate the end-to-end provider workflow before investing in detailed UI design.

My Role

Product Strategy, Experience Architecture, Stakeholder & Ecosystem Alignment

Collaborators

Lead Software Engineer, Principal Project Manager

Lead Software Engineer
Principal Project Manager

Platform

Responsive E-commerce
Web App, Data Analytics
Dashboard and CMS
B2B2C Environment

Stakeholders

MyOasis: CFO, CEO & COO

Duration

5 Weeks

Challenge

The MyOasis ecosystem faced dual adoption risks: Mobile usability barriers limited patient commerce engagement, while disconnected provider sales tracking reduced operational visibility and weakened alignment between care delivery and product fulfillment workflows.

Business Goals

Expand patient engagement and product conversion across mobile commerce channels while equipping providers with integrated sales intelligence to drive revenue growth and care-to-commerce continuity.

Projected Impact Metrics below:
Based on comparative usability testing, stakeholder analytics review, and benchmark modeling against similar healthcare commerce platforms.

75%

Improved onboarding process for target users

45%

Increase in user retention

84%

Increase in user engagement and session length

The existing platform consisted of disconnected provider and patient experiences with inconsistent navigation, limited mobile usability, and fragmented commerce workflows.

The Project

Discovery Insights:
The core barrier to adoption was not feature scarcity, but workflow complexity. Patients struggled with checkout flexibility while providers lacked scalable mechanisms to support repeat purchasing behaviors.

When MyOASIS approached us, the expectation was straightforward: modernize the appearance of their B2B2C e-commerce storefront to create a more appealing shopping experience. Rather than adding features, the strategy focused on reducing friction by simplifying purchasing workflows and establishing extensible commerce patterns that supported subscriptions, flexible payments, and future platform growth.

Discovery Insights:
The core barrier to adoption was not feature scarcity, but workflow complexity. Patients struggled with checkout flexibility while providers lacked scalable mechanisms to support repeat purchasing behaviors.

Rather than expanding feature breadth, the strategy focused on reducing transactional friction and introducing extensible commerce patterns that could support long-term subscription and payment flexibility.

Strategic Insight:
The opportunity to increase the engagement rate wasn’t found in adding more commerce features; it was in creating continuity across the patient, provider, and operational ecosystem.

Workflow architecture evolved through collaborative sessions with lead engineer and the product manager.

Workflow architecture evolved through collaborative mapping
sessions with engineers, technical artists, and animators to align
AI capabilities with real production workflows
before designing the interface.

Decision Principles

To balance stakeholder priorities, platform constraints, and long-term scalability, we established a set of decision principles that guided prioritization throughout the project.

1. Reduce Friction Before Expanding Features:
Simplified purchasing workflows and mobile checkout before introducing advanced capabilities, ensuring adoption barriers were addressed first.

2. Design for Ecosystem Continuity, Not Isolated Transactions:
Connected patient, provider, and operational workflows to strengthen care-to-commerce experiences rather than optimizing isolated interactions.

3. Favor Scalable Foundations Over Short-Term Customization:
Prioritized modular commerce patterns and flexible payment architecture that could support future CRM integration, subscriptions, and platform growth.

4. Balance Stakeholder Value Through Progressive Enablement:
Focused on improvements that delivered immediate usability and business impact while creating a foundation for future ecosystem maturity.

5. De-Risk Through Incremental Platform Evolution:
Reduced workflow friction through low-risk, high-impact improvements while intentionally deferring complex integrations until the platform was ready.

The Defining Moment

The storefront wasn't the problem: Reframing a visual redesign into a customer lifecycle transformation that improved access, adoption, retention, and repeat purchases.

During discovery, I uncovered that customers weren't necessarily struggling to shop. They were struggling to get into the store.

Users frequently had difficulty locating the platform, remembering how to access it, and signing in. Registration required a doctor code, creating another barrier to onboarding, while password-based authentication introduced recurring friction. Rather than navigating these obstacles, customers often chose to call and place their orders instead.

A more attractive storefront alone wouldn't resolve these issues. I challenged the original project framing by demonstrating that the greatest opportunities existed across the customer journey, not simply within the shopping interface.

Instead of limiting the redesign to visual improvements, I advocated for rethinking how customers discovered, accessed, and returned to the platform. This shifted the design direction toward removing friction at critical points in the customer lifecycle.

Going Beyond the Storefront

The redesigned experience helped increase customer adoption, improve onboarding, strengthen retention, and encourage repeat purchases through the digital platform.

More accessible repeat purchasing: Elevated the reorder experience so returning customers could quickly purchase products they already needed.
Simplified onboarding and authentication: Redesigned registration and login around passcodes rather than traditional passwords, reducing the burden of remembering credentials and making it easier for customers to return.
Proactive customer engagement: Introduced SMS and email reorder reminders that brought customers directly back to the platform through convenient links.
A connected commerce experience: Redesigned the broader e-commerce platform to create a more cohesive journey from onboarding through repeat purchase.

These changes addressed the underlying behavioral and operational barriers that had been limiting digital adoption.

Turning Customer Convenience into Business Growth

By making it easier for customers to access MyOASIS and reorder products, the solution also created opportunities to reduce dependence on phone-based ordering and improve operational efficiency.

The business value extended beyond a more modern storefront: we transformed a transactional website into a more accessible, retention-focused commerce experience designed to encourage recurring revenue.

Potential Business Impact

A modest 5% increase in purchasing revenue attributable to improved access, retention, and repeat ordering represents an additional $75,000 in annual revenue. Additionally, shifting 1,000 phone orders annually to digital self-service, at an estimated $8 in avoided handling costs per order, could generate another $8,000 in annual operational savings.

Together, these improvements represent approximately $83,000 in potential annual economic benefit, combining incremental revenue and operational cost avoidance.

Lessons Learned

Leadership Lesson | Alignment Is a Continuous Design Deliverable:
I didn't simply deliver the storefront the client requested. I helped uncover the business problem they actually needed to solve.

By connecting user behavior, access barriers, and purchasing patterns, I influenced a broader product direction, one that treated customer convenience, retention, and repeat purchasing as interconnected drivers of business growth.

Leadership Lesson | Alignment Is a Continuous Design Deliverable:
This discovery reinforced that alignment is not a milestone achieved at the beginning of a project, but an ongoing leadership responsibility. Navigating competing priorities across patients, providers, engineering, and business stakeholders required establishing shared decision principles and maintaining continuous communication throughout the project lifecycle. By treating alignment as a core design outcome, the team was able to move quickly, reduce ambiguity, and make lower-risk decisions while maintaining a unified ecosystem vision.

“Merilly played a crucial role in several internal projects, bringing not just strong design execution but also a sharp, strategic mindset that helped shape better outcomes. What really stood out, though, was her ability to quickly onboard mid-project when we needed coverage, seamlessly picking up where another designer left off. That’s no small feat, but they handled it with confidence and efficiency.

Beyond her skills, she was a fantastic teammate. Always willing to share knowledge and collaborate to make the work stronger. Any team would be lucky to have her!”

James Williams

Design Leader | Sparq