Wayne Sang

Gopuff

Led a full redesign of a delivery service to eliminate design and technical debt to enable modern product expansion for the next decade.

7 years after it’s creation, GoPuff had grown from a college campus startup to being in 400 major US cities by 2021. With aspirations for more expansion, more product lines, and European markets, GoPuff needed to drastically overhaul their mobile app. I led the effort to define and design that outcome over 4 months.

Objective

Redesign the app to support 10x more products, enable personalization at scale, and align a diverse group of executives around a shared vision.

Highlights

  • Drove redesign strategy and execution over 4 months.
    Facilitated executive workshops and alignment.

  • Led design team through information architecture, UX flows, and brand evolution.

  • Partnered closely with client side Product Managers to shape feature prioritization and rollout.

My Role

As the Design Lead & Manager I was core to managing both internal teams and external stakeholders.

Internally I managed a team of 2 other Product Designers and 1 Principle Designer while also coordinating tactical User Research sprints when necessary. I worked occasionally with a Design Director for high level support along with a Product Delivery Manager for operational support.

Externally I worked directly with Executive Leadership from Product and Technical Pillars including the co-founders of the company and their VP of Technology. I led the high level strategy, presentations, and narratives each week to maintain alignment and momentum for all parties.

Approach

  1. Aligning the Vision

Our full redesign was also part of a complete technical rewrite. This meant our scope included a complete mapping of their existing feature set and a new roadmap that both assessed core functions and strategically left behind old product debt. I led workshops and discussions on what to keep, what to evolve, and what to rebuild.

Action:
Co-created a Product Map with the product team, combining user journeys, features, and epics into a single view.

Impact:
Gave executives a shared framework to prioritize goals and make trade-offs.

  1. Designing for Discoverability

The app had to support thousands of products across multiple verticals, but older systems lacked modern search capabilities. Along with redesigning wayfinding across the product we also exploration Search centric with added capabilities for fuzzy matching and dynamic promotions.

Action: Built and tested wireframe scenarios for search, browsing, and casual exploration.

Impact: Validated new information architecture with users, ensuring products could be found quickly across categories.

  1. Evolving the Brand

GoPuff arrived with a brand update that lacked a digital execution, providing us the opportunity expand the digital language alongside the structural work.

This turned out to be a great opportunity to have the details of product inform aspects of the brand.

Action: Led design of 3 diverse creative territories that showed a wide variety of directions, leading to iteration on a final selected vision.

Impact: A new brand language with digital-first point of view that felt refreshed yet also rooted in their brand history.

  1. Building for Personalization

Static layout systems limited how GoPuff could target different customers. Early on we identified a need for flexible, modern layout systems that would enable further iteration and experimentation.

Action: Designed layout system and component variations for the home screen, product carousels, and detail pages — from “no promos” to “major event takeovers.”

Impact: Enabled tailored experiences by user segment, location, or event, freeing teams from competing for fixed screen space. Enabled rapid and cost effective experimentation by Product.

Outcomes

Scalable IA

Supported 10x product categories and new verticals while improving discoverability.

Supported 10x product categories and new verticals while improving discoverability.

Executive Alignment

Unified diverse stakeholders around a shared roadmap in just 4 months.

Unified diverse stakeholders around a shared roadmap in just 4 months.

Flexible Brand System

Modernized GoPuff’s identity with a digital-first design language.

Modernized GoPuff’s identity with a digital-first design language.

Personalization Toolkit

Created adaptable layouts that unlock ongoing marketing and user engagement opportunities.

Created adaptable layouts that unlock ongoing marketing and user engagement opportunities.

Reflections

This project reinforced my strength in blending design leadership and product strategy — mapping complex systems, aligning stakeholders, and delivering a design foundation that can evolve with the business.

Gantt chart of our initial schedule for an early alignment meeting

Gantt chart of our initial schedule for an early alignment meeting

Gantt chart of our initial schedule for an early alignment meeting

Creative territory excerpts from the chosen direction

Creative territory excerpts from the chosen direction

Creative territory excerpts from the chosen direction

© 2025 Wayne Sang

© 2025 Wayne Sang

© 2025 Wayne Sang