Performance Food Group
UX architecture and design
2023 – 2024
TL;DR
At Performance Food Group, I served as Senior UX Designer on a cross-functional team. We were tasked with designing a mobile ordering app for restaurant, retail, and food service customers. I led the wireframing and primary UI design, contributing to a scalable design system. I also created comprehensive user flows that accounted for complex ordering logic, alerts, and multi-location management.
I navigated evolving business requirements and backend constraints to effectively translate web-based functionality into a streamlined mobile experience. This translation was crucial for the app's success. By introducing new UI components and design patterns, my work expanded PFG’s design system, laying a foundation for future releases and enabling internal scaling across a range of digital products.
Performance Food Group — Customer Ordering Mobile App
Project Type
Mobile App Design, UX Architecture, UI Design, Design System Extension
Role
Senior UX Designer
Background
Performance Food Group is a national family of food service distribution companies serving restaurants, retail, and institutional food service vendors. Traditionally, customers used a web portal to manage accounts and place orders, but the organization recognized an opportunity to improve efficiency and convenience through a mobile experience. A mobile app would allow busy professionals to check inventory, build orders, and manage accounts from anywhere, improving speed and usability on the go.
Problem
The web-only experience limited flexibility by making it difficult for customers to track inventory or reorder quickly. The lack of a mobile solution created friction in time-sensitive workflows, especially for those managing inventory and restocking tasks in real time. The new app needed to be fast, lightweight, and intuitive to address the challenges of out-of-stock scenarios, multi-location accounts, and real-time alerts.
Approach
As Senior UX Designer, I worked as part of a cross-functional team including two other designers, product owners, business stakeholders, and development. I was responsible for both wireframing and primary UI design, while also contributing to research, interaction flow, prototypes, and handoff specifications.
After joining the project, I was able to concentrate on building user flows and wireframes, as foundational research and feature prioritization were already wrapping up. I reviewed the competitive research, best practice documentation, and prioritized features. After analysis and team discussions, I began building comprehensive user flows and interactive wireframes to ensure the team could validate navigation logic and technical feasibility early.
Prototyping & Testing
We created high-fidelity interactive prototypes in Figma and tested them internally and with real users through stakeholder-facilitated sessions. Though testing was conducted informally, the feedback received helped validate the app's core functionality and usability. Field users appreciated the ability to act on alerts, build orders quickly, and be greeted with high-level updates and notifications upon opening the app.
Solution
We designed a full-featured mobile app that included ordering, account management, and location switching. The wireframes accounted for edge cases, error states, offline usage, notifications and other rare but real user scenarios reflecting the operational complexity of the food service industry.
Beginning within an established design system used across PFG’s digital ecosystem, I extended the system by designing new mobile-specific components and patterns. New components necessary for the mobile app were designed with other digital properties in mind to allow for continual evolution and unification of all experiences; future-proofing UX across app, web, and email products by anticipating potential incongruity.
Challenges
-
Handling complex business rules and frequent shifts in feature definitions
-
Designing around multiple types of inventory alerts and varied account structures
-
Working within evolving system constraints and feature requirements
-
Expanding the design system without interrupting existing components or functionality for a large development team with direct access
-
Ensuring functionality was intuitive for a wide range of users, including non-technical field staff
Results
-
The first release of the app launched successfully
-
Design work contributed directly to the evolution of PFG’s digital design system
-
The foundation created for mobile will support future releases with reduced design dependency, thanks to scalable UI components and documentation
-
Helped unify brand and interaction standards across mobile and web experiences
Impact
This project enabled Performance Food Group to offer a faster, more flexible way for customers to manage their business on their schedule. It improved access, reduced ordering friction, and created a more scalable UX foundation for ongoing innovation across platforms.