Reimagining How Laundromats Set Up Pickup and Delivery at Cents

Overview

Cents is a business management platform helping laundromat operators grow and manage their businesses.

In June 2025, I joined the Cents design team as a summer intern to contribute to and organize their maturing design system and bring outdated screens up to date.

Objective

Over 40% of Cents laundromat locations have pickup and delivery enabled, and the pickup and delivery setup flow and delivery settings panels are some of the product’s oldest screens.

The existing flow was abrupt and confusing, particularly for operators with limited technology experience or who speak English as a second language.

My objective was to redesign how laundromat operators set up and managed their pickup and delivery service to improve user independence and satisfaction through a more intuitive and informed setup experience.

Through my redesign, I also aimed to reduce the workload of Cents’ Customer Success team, who frequently spent up to two hours on a call walking operators through the pickup and delivery setup process.

Process

The redesign process included the following steps over the 5 weeks:

Research

I came to understand the current flow through four qualitative research methods:

Research Findings

Design Process

1 - REMOVING PRIMARY PAIN POINT

Designing for Archiving Windows

Pickup and delivery windows are the specific times each week when the end customer can schedule their laundry to be picked up or delivered.

Existing Design: Tabs Siloed Each Window

Problem: Operators frequently manage 8-15 windows per location, and the existing design made it nearly impossible to audit, compare, or remove outdated windows, which led to misconfigured schedules, missed pickups, and support tickets.

• Tabbed view makes it difficult to quickly compare windows.
• Vertical layout elongates panels with lots of space
• Operators cannot archive windows once created.

Top Feature Request: Removing Windows

During my research, 100% of the operators and Cents CS team members I spoke with mentioned needing a way to delete or archive windows.

If an operator wanted to remove a window, they would need to contact their CS team member who would file a ticket on their behalf with the dev team, who would eventually archive it.

Plus, one operator had a location with over 15 different windows, and to compare two windows, she had to click through each tab, scroll through the panel, and then write down the details with a pencil and paper.

My Solution:

New Scannable Window Card Component

I introduced a card component for each window to make it easy to compare windows at a glance.

• Wrapped dropdowns save space and improve scanability
• Added functionality: archiving windows

Why this Works:

Designed for How Operators Think: Operators need to see more than just their window names; they need each window’s days, times, and service types. Making this information visible upfront reduces guesswork and speeds up decision-making.

Increases Operator Independence: By introducing archiving directly into the workflow, operators no longer need to rely on Cents customer support or engineering.

2 - REDUCING OPERATOR DROPOFF

Reimagining the first step of the onboarding flow

To combat the biggest drop-off point for operators, I used helper text to prepare and inform operators of the process.

Existing Flow: Users Dropped into Geofencing Without Context

Problem: Operators were being dropped directly into a complex geofencing task without context, causing high abandonment during onboarding.

What Research Revealed:

During usability testing and funnel analysis, I noticed that operators most often dropped off during the geofencing wizard—typically after already spending 20+ minutes trying to set up their zones.

Setting up delivery zones with geofencing is not an intuitive first step because it requires a lot of thinking and attention for operators. As a result, it is very time-consuming. I wondered: could the geofencing wizard be moved later in the flow?

My Solution:

I originally explored moving delivery zone setup later in the flow to reduce friction, but that wasn’t possible.

Key Constraint: Delivery windows and pricing tiers require delivery zones, making geofencing a mandatory prerequisite.

New Flow: Adding Context Before a Required Task

Rather than removing or delaying geofencing, I focused on reducing cognitive load at the moment users encounter it by adding contextual guidance and previewing downstream value.

Why this Works:

Reduces Surprise: Even though the new design adds a click for operators, it introduces context and expectation-setting before a cognitively-heavy task, reducing surprise and early drop-off with the geofencing wizard.

Increases Motivation: Previewing downstream settings (delivery windows and buffers) helps operators understand why delivery zones are required, increasing motivation to complete setup.

INCORPORATING FEEDBACK

Re-Introducing Break Points

I reviewed the redesigned flow with the design team and later presented it to the product team near the end of my summer internship.

Stakeholder Concern: Long Flow with No Pause Points

While feedback on the redesign was largely positive, a key concern emerged: operators may not have time to complete the entire pickup and delivery setup in a single session.

With the existing flow, incomplete setup resulted in a vague error banner that did not clearly explain what was missing or how to resolve it.

Problem: Operators need a way to pause mid-setup and confidently resume where they left off, without losing progress or context.

My Solution:

I redesigned the unfinished-state experience to support pause-and-resume behavior instead of treating incomplete setup as an error.

• Introduced Save & Exit breakpoints after major decisions (e.g., delivery method selection), allowing operators to safely leave the flow without losing progress.
• Reframed the error banner into a clear status message that explains why pickup & delivery is not live and what steps remain.
• Added a primary call-to-action that takes operators directly back to the next required step, eliminating guesswork and re-navigation.

This simple update maximized flexibility and better informed operators for an experience that better fits operators’ real-world time constraints.

Outcomes

My final redesign maximized clarity, flexibility, and operator independence across a critical pickup and delivery setup workflow.

• Validated through usability testing: I tested with 3 users with 100% task completion using the Figma prototype.
• Moving towards implementation: I am partnering with a developer for phased handoff, beginning with the most critical need: redesigned pickup and delivery windows.
• Measuring Success: Planned next steps include tracking operator completion rates and screens with highest drop-off rates to gauge success metrics.

Lessons Learned