The Templates
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I was part of the UX team that analyzed all emails being sent from MinuteClinic and Pharmacy to our customers.
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We placed them into design categories, grouping them by similarities in function and message. For example:
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Pre-visit
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Cancellation
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Reminders
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Post-visit
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Follow-ups
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We then created a design system in Figma that ensured consistency.
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The Notification team could then grab an appropriate template for any new notifications.
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Because this was created as a design system, any change we made to the master could change all future notifications using that element.
The Design
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The Product team would contact the Notifications team when a new notification was required by the business.
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We would then brainstorm with members of Product, Development, UI designers, and UX designers.
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Once we understood the business and user goals, we would quickly select a template from our existing designs and complete a high-fidelity design in Figma. There was no reason for wireframes.
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These designs were then iterated upon and approved.
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The designs were handed off to development and quickly coded.
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We then tested the emails in Email on Acid.
Images and Transactional Emails
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One of the features I was responsible for was to introduce imagery into our transactional emails. Marketing had been employing graphics for many years, but no one had thought about the benefits of adding them to transactional emails.
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We began by adding several types of images to our MinuteClinic reminder email. We made certain our images were designed for mobile and desktop email clients.
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We then tested three emails with images and one without to see if the added images resonated with users or were they just annoying.
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We discovered in testing that most users were delighted to see the images and they gave them a sense of context as well as reenforcing CVS branding.
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The winner was "C" below. Users preferred the flat, cartoon image over the more stock photo images.
Best Practices
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Our team also formulated a series of "best practices" to guide designers in creating new notifications with images moving forward.
