THE SHORTEST
PATH TO "SCHEDULED."
From 3% to 13%+ conversion — four compounding UX bets that drove $15M+ in measurable business impact.
Duration
3 Years (2023-2025)
Client
Big O Tires
YoY Conv. Rate
+12.9%
Conversion Growth
Annual Revenue Lift
$15M
Incremental ROI
Path Preference
6X
Express vs Legacy
Click image to enlarge
The Opportunity
From Browsing
to Booking.
The Friction
The Decision Fatigue Wall: Legacy funnel complexity caused high-intent users to stall at the finish line—overwhelmed by pricing comparisons, they dropped off from sheer decision fatigue.
The Lever
Speed Over Selection: Data revealed the Quick Appointment path outperforming the traditional flow by 13% (40.26% vs 27.17%). Users didn't want choice; they wanted an "Express Lane."
The Outcome
A $10M–$15M Revenue Pivot: Redesigning funnel entry to prioritize the Quick Appointment path drove a +12.9% conversion lift and an estimated $15M+ in ROI.
Evaluation & Approach.
Fix highest-intent leaks first → then move upstream.
Strategic Context
Baseline Foundation: Scaled conversions from 3% to 13%+ MoM at Tire Kingdom.
Cross-Brand Mobility: Applied sector-wide retail learnings to the Big O Tires franchise model, identifying shared friction points across 2,000+ points of sale.
Playbook & Validation
Learnings served as tactical hypotheses, validated via Optimizely A/B pilots before rolling out a systematic cross-brand strategy that yielded $30M in total impact.
Validation Method
Optimizely experiments • systematic cross-brand validation • $30M Total impact
Plug Funnel Leaks
Fix checkout distractions
Entry Simplification
Optimize mobile YMME
Express Lane
Simplify entry points
Data Alliance
Overriding brand friction
Framework: Start with highest-intent users (already decided) → reduce checkout friction → then optimize upstream entry and discovery
Plugging Funnel Leaks · 2022
Simplified Focus.
I identified that navigation noise was pulling high-intent users off the primary task. By removing global navigation from checkout entirely, I forced focus onto the single conversion action, drastically reducing cognitive load.
Before
After
YMME Redesign · 2023
THE "DROPDOWN NIGHTMARE" FIX.
Constraint
Legacy vehicle entry was a "Dropdown Nightmare" of background noise and high cognitive load.
Action
Replaced dropdowns with a custom modal stepper focused on one interaction at a time.
Result
3:1 ratio shift into Quick Appointment path; users reported feeling "quicker/less effort."
Before
After
Mobile: Before & After
Strategic Tiering via Heatmaps: Using user-testing heatmaps to identify where users "stalled" in the legacy YMME flow. By evolving the CTA stack from left-to-right, we prioritized the Quick Appointment entry point as the primary path—a data-led design pattern that successfully moved from retail testing into the BOT core architecture.
View Engineering & UX Constraints
Technical Debt: The legacy YMME (Year, Make, Model, Engine) flow was tethered to a rigid, synchronous API that required a full page reload for each dropdown selection. This created a 4-7 second "choice lag" where users would often bounce before the 'Engine' option even populated.
The Solution: We decoupled the UI from the synchronous API by implementing an optimistic multi-step stepper. This allowed the browser to pre-cache subsequent steps while the user was interacting with the current selection, reducing the perceived interaction time by ~65%.
Decision Friction · 2023
Express Lane to Schedule.
I proposed eliminating the lower-performing "Quote & Schedule" path entirely — validated by data showing Quick Appointment outperforming it by 13 percentage points — and redesigned the nav entry point to route all traffic into the fastest path to booking.
Timeline
Proposed: August 2023
Approved: Early 2025
18 months before business approval. In the interim, I kept wireframes dev-ready and socialized the conversion data with the Analytics team - so when executive priorities shifted, the recommendation moved from backlog to approved in a single meeting.
The Friction:
Path Complexity / Decision Fatigue
Users had to decide between Quick Appointment and Quote & Schedule without understanding the difference, leading to suboptimal path selection and drop-offs.
The Lever:
Metric-Driven Streamlining
Since Quick Appointment consistently outperformed Quote & Schedule (40.26% vs 27.17%), I removed the lower-performing option and streamlined the entry point to keep more users on the fastest path to booking.
The Outcome:
Multi-Million Dollar Scale
Driven by conversion data, we scaled this success:
Brand Expansion: Shifted Big O service traffic into the higher-converting Quick Appointment funnel.
Future-Proofing: Designed dev-ready flows to pass selected services as preselected defaults and auto-attach coupons to minimize future drop-off.
Overriding Brand Friction · 2024
Building a
Data Alliance.
Legacy red, square CTAs lacked "visual gravity" and blended into the brand-heavy UI, causing friction at the point of purchase. I proposed moving to green, pill-shaped CTAs to align with universal "Go" signals and reduce micro-hesitation.
A/B Test Outcome
+6.71%
Lift in Conversion Rate
Revenue Impact
+$4.6M
Estimated annualized incremental lift
Qualtrics A/B test • 90-day window • 95% confidence • assumes 70% appt. show-up rate
View Research & Stakeholder Strategy
The Research: Backed by Baymard Institute and NN/g research on checkout mental models: red is deeply associated with errors and stop signals. Green aligns with "Go," allowing users to complete actions without re-evaluating what the button means.
The Strategy: Facing internal pushback regarding brand identity, I played the long game—socializing conversion data with Analytics and keeping wireframes dev-ready. When piloted via Qualtrics, the lift was too significant to ignore.
Strategic Collaboration
Bridging Design
& Engineering.
"Lea works exceptionally well across Product, QA, and Engineering... he stays engaged through the full software development life cycle."
Chad Taylor
Sr. Director - Digital Engineering // TBC
"Lea is dedicated and tireless... When presented with a challenge, he brings multiple thoughtful solutions forward."
Martin Mattox
Digital Product Owner // TBC
Reflections
Lessons Learned.
Fix the Floor Before the Ceiling
Focusing on checkout friction for high-intent users yielded faster, more significant revenue impact than any upstream awareness initiative. Audit the bottom of the funnel first.
Data Is the Best Stakeholder Manager
Design rationale alone couldn't override brand friction. Building an ally in the Analytics team to surface the +6.71% lift was the real strategic design decision.
Simplicity Is a Compounding Asset
The 6X preference for "Express Lane" vs legacy wasn't about a better experience—it was about fewer steps. The discipline to remove features is a primary value-add.
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