Cart & Checkout Experience
Following a team reorganization, the Digital Commerce team partnered with our UX team to evaluate Pluralsight's existing cart and checkout experience. This exploration was my first iteration as our team began taking ownership of the experience, focusing on reducing friction, clarifying interactions, and creating a more focused path to purchase.
role.
Senior UX Designer
timeline.
Q2 2026
project type.
Spec/Exploratory Design
The Challenge
The existing checkout experience contained several patterns that created unnecessary friction and competed for users' attention.
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Too much visual noise
The experience used inactive future steps to communicate the checkout process. While intended to provide a sense of progress and user control, these inactive states ultimately took up valuable space without helping users complete the task at hand.
The interface also relied heavily on nested containers and boxed-in form fields, creating a visually dense and fragmented experience.
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Unclear interactions
Interactive elements weren't consistently communicated as interactive. Some selections used radio buttons while others relied on subtle background changes, making it difficult to distinguish inputs from static information.
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A disconnected summary
The right side of the layout was labeled as a summary, but also contained interactive plan selections and other inputs. This blurred the distinction between making a purchase decision and reviewing that decision.
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An unnecessary final step
The existing three-step flow ended with a separate "Review & Confirm" screen. Beyond providing a final purchase button, this step introduced little additional value and created another opportunity for users to drop out before completing their purchase.
Exploration
My approach was to simplify the experience around a single principle: Keep users focused on completing the current task while making their purchase decisions easy to understand and review.
One side for inputs
I consolidated customer inputs on the left side of the layout, allowing the right side to function as a true summary of the user's selections. The only exception was the promo code field, which remained within the summary because of its direct relationship to the order total.
The Solution
The final concept brought these ideas together into a simpler two-step checkout experience.
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A clearer hierarchy
Inputs live on the left. The order summary lives on the right. Each area has a distinct purpose, making it easier to understand where to act and where to review.
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More intentional interactions
Consistent selection patterns and larger interactive areas make required inputs easier to identify and interact with.
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Fewer opportunities to drop off
Removing the unnecessary review step shortens the path to purchase while preserving the information users need to make a confident decision.
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Responsive by design
The experience was designed across desktop and mobile breakpoints, maintaining the same hierarchy and review opportunities regardless of screen size.
Reflection
This project is an early exploration rather than a shipped redesign, but it represents an exciting opportunity as our team takes ownership of the cart and checkout experience.
The next step is putting these hypotheses into the hands of real customers. I'm looking forward to testing whether a simpler two-step flow, clearer interaction patterns, and more persistent order visibility can reduce drop-off and ultimately improve conversion.
More importantly, this work established a foundation for continued iteration—giving the team a clearer starting point for identifying friction, testing solutions, and improving the experience over time.