The Farmer's Dog (TFD) is a subscription service providing freshly cooked, healthy dog food to pet parents. I worked there as a full-stack engineer, but after our designer left, jumped in to explore design changes to close a significant gap between mobile and desktop checkout conversion rates, and also implement it.

Role: Product Designer, Software Engineer

Team: 1 Product Manager

Results

• Achieved a 22% improvement in conversion rate for the first phase of changes
• Translated to 2,059 additional checkouts in the first month
• Successfully launched first of four planned improvement phases

Context

I took on this project as both designer and engineer because I was the engineer on TFD's Acquisition pod (responsible for the signup experience), and we had just lost our only designer.

In mid-November, I was tasked with addressing a critical problem before Christmas (high season for sales): our mobile checkout wasn't performing. 78% of our visitors were on mobile, but converted at only half the rate of desktop users.

That gave me 4 weeks to research, design, and code the first phase of improvements, so I needed to move quickly but thoughtfully.

User Research

Methodology

I rapidly gathered insights through:

• Customer support conversation analysis
• Competitive research (Harry's, Casper, Misfits)
• Existing user behavior data
• Usability tests with 8 users via PlaybookUX

Key Findings

Information Clarity

• Users struggled to understand subscription costs and future orders - the info was presented as full sentences, and a strange set of numbers was chosen
• Mobile users feared missing information available on desktop

Form Usability

• Content wasn't logically ordered: the pricing info was separated from the checkout button, forcing users to scroll up and down
• Aggressive validation and modal errors disrupted checkout flow
• Password creation added unnecessary friction

Design Solution Implications

• Progressive Disclosure: Break the form into logical sections using an accordion pattern
• Subscription Transparency: Make recurring costs and future order details clearer
• Simplified Authentication: Remove password creation from checkout
• Smart Validation: Implement inline validation to catch errors early

Design Solution

Given the tight timeline, I broke the improvements into phases so that I could implement and A/B test the quick wins we were more confident in before Christmas while continuing to research more complex solutions.

Phase 1: Subscription Info Redesign (Shipped)

• Reordered content to group trial order and CTA
• Put basic order info in fixed header so always visible
• Clarified presentation of next order/subscription info: sentences → table
• Launched within 1 week of development

Phase 2: Passwordless Checkout (Ready for A/B Testing)

• Removed password creation from checkout flow to streamline (would have been in Phase 1 but had backend dependencies and wouldn't be done by Christmas)
• Added automated post-purchase password setup email

Phase 3: Accordion Form (Design Complete)

• Broke form into logical sections
• Reduced overwhelming appearance of long form
• Added clear progress indicators
• Design approved, pending usability testing

Phase 4: Enhanced Order Summary (In Research)

• Created detailed next order cards
• Added visual elements like recipe images
• Further improvements to subscription clarity
• Validated design through user research

Results

Phase 1 Impact

• 22% improvement in conversion rate on mobile (10.80% to 13.11%)
• Resulted in 2,059 additional checkouts in first month
• Reached statistical significance within 4 days

Next Steps

I left The Farmer's Dog in early 2021 - at that point Phase 2 implementation for (passwordless checkout) was done and about to be released. The remaining work was handed off to other people:

• Rollout passwordless checkout A/B test across mobile and desktop
• Complete usability testing for accordion form design
• Continue research on price presentation (full vs. weekly pricing)