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When REI set out to explore a subscription model for high-end rental equipment, they brought me in as the first dedicated UX lead on an initiative already 18 months in motion. With no established UX process and a compressed timeline, I immediately stood up a research and design practice, facilitating cross-functional workshops in week two to align marketing, membership, inventory, and in-store operations around a shared digital-to-store customer journey anchored in a physical San Diego retail location.
Joined as the first dedicated UX lead, I ran weekly qualitative sessions on UserTesting.com with 40 participants per session over two — three months, while guiding a parallel vendor-run market study through consistent collaboration and a shared research framework. Together these gave the team a continuously updated, multi-dimensional picture of customer appetite. Weekly stakeholder readouts kept decision-makers informed in real time, and the findings accurately predicted pilot outcomes; when the San Diego pilot closed, only 3 out of 150 customers invited to the pilot had enrolled, validating the UX research over Marketing assumptions.
Innovation projects aren't always a linear path to success. For this pilot, the UX research provided a strong, consistent, and accurate signal of customer appetite from the earliest sessions through launch. Although the program didn't meet Marketing's goals, the depth and diligence of the research demonstrated how embedded UX can surface critical misalignment early, giving organizations the evidence they need to make informed decisions at scale.
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This high-profile retail innovation pilot required end-to-end UX ownership, rigorous research under organizational pressure, and the ability to advocate for customer needs when the data conflicted with stakeholder assumptions.