Overview

Company: Shopify, Retail
Industry: SaaS, Ecommerce
Timeline: 6 months (2025)
Role: Lead Content Designer

Background

Shopify Point of Sale is the app and backend that unifies a merchant’s digital store with their physical retail space. It's also the command center for all of their hardware, including card readers, barcode scanners, and receipt printers.

Challenge

Shopify’s retail device onboarding was fragmented and difficult to scale. Inconsistent flows across different hardware created friction for merchants trying to set up their stores and made it difficult for designers to build new onboarding experiences.

Solution

I led the design of a scalable content system categorized by device type. This involved defining a standardized structure, consistent patterns, and a unified voice for hardware setup, making the setup process predictable and effortless for merchants.

Outcome

We unified onboarding flows across the entire hardware ecosystem, reducing the number of steps required to get merchants 'ready to sell.' Beyond the merchant experience, I delivered a scalable pattern library for the Retail team, empowering designers to launch onboarding for new devices faster and more consistently.

Process

Step 1: Audit and analyze steps

I partnered with engineering and design to audit all hardware onboarding flows. I identified sequencing issues, inconsistent patterns across devices, and tone and string variations affecting clarity and cohesion.

Step 2: Rearchitect and streamline the sequence

I restructured onboarding flows across device types (e.g., printers, scanners, card readers), standardizing core steps while preserving device-specific requirements.

Step 3: Define content patterns and map new flows

I developed reusable content patterns and guidelines for onboarding flows, using AI to surface inconsistencies and accelerate iteration across the system.

Step 4: Standardize and scale onboarding flows

I co-developed onboarding templates with structured content variables for the Retail Design System, accelerating and standardizing onboarding flow creation.

Step 5: Ship new onboarding flows

With templates, imagery, and finalized content in place, engineering implemented the updated onboarding flows across devices.

Results

By standardizing the onboarding journey, we simultaneously reduced complexity for merchants and streamlined the internal production process. These metrics reflect our success in turning a fragmented setup into a high-velocity, scalable system.