Context

Walmart’s Open Call is the largest sourcing event of its kind in the U.S., tied to Walmart’s $350B commitment to American-made products. Each year, hundreds of small and mid-size businesses apply, submit products, upload documentation, and prepare to pitch directly to Walmart buyers.

Before suppliers ever reached their meetings, they were required to complete a complex pre-event workflow inside a supplier-facing portal. As the event scaled year over year, the portal needed stronger structure, clearer guidance, and a more intuitive UX to support both suppliers and internal teams.

My Role

Principal Designer, ECRM Open Call Product Team (2019–2021)

I led the end-to-end UX and UI redesign of the supplier portal, including:

• Workflow architecture for onboarding, product submissions, meeting prep, documentation, and communication

• High-fidelity interface design across mobile and desktop

• Content strategy and terminology alignment across supplier workflows and html emails

• Creation of brand identity and unified component library

• Daily partnership with engineering for feasibility and refinement

• Collaboration with Walmart event leadership and ECRM support teams

Challenge

Despite its visibility and scale, the supplier portal faced recurring usability issues that created friction for both suppliers and internal Walmart/ECRM teams.

Supplier Pain Points

1. Unclear or inconsistent requirements

Suppliers struggled to understand which information was required, what terminology meant, and how to complete steps accurately. Requirements often appeared inconsistent from page to page.

2. Scattered forms and language

Key actions such as adding products, uploading documents, or confirming meetings were dispersed across disconnected screens. Terminology varied between teams, making the workflow harder to follow.

3. High cognitive load during onboarding

Suppliers—many of whom had never attended Open Call—faced long, dense forms and multi-step processes with little structure or guidance, resulting in errors and avoidable delays.

Internal Pain Points

1. Heavy manual troubleshooting

Support teams were inundated with questions about requirements, statuses, and missing steps—many of which stemmed from UX ambiguity.

2. Repeated clarification requests

Internal teams routinely clarified terminology, document definitions, and product requirements. The system’s inconsistency created unnecessary communication overhead.

3. No unified design language

The portal had been expanded over multiple Open Calls without a centralized design system. Pages used different layouts, patterns, and UI logic, making the experience harder to maintain and harder for suppliers to learn.

Approach

My design approach focused on clarity, structure, consistency, and transparency—reducing cognitive load while streamlining operations for internal teams.

1. Clarified requirements through guided, Step-by-step flows

I restructured onboarding into a guided, multi-step experience that surfaced requirements at the right moments and reduced the decision-making burden on suppliers.

2. Consolidated forms and standardized terminology

I unified previously scattered workflows into predictable, clearly labeled sections. Product submissions, documents, and meeting requirements were consolidated so suppliers always knew where they were and what actions were expected next.

3. Reduced cognitive load with improved information design

Long, dense forms were broken into smaller units using progressive disclosure, clearer field grouping, and inline validation. Content was rewritten for clarity and consistency, dramatically reducing supplier confusion.