Amazon Layaway

My role and responsibilities:

• Senior UX Designer: ideation, UX/UI design, prototyping, cross-functional collaboration (tech, product, payments)
• Research: generative research, competitive analysis, usability research

About this project:
Research showed that customers across income levels were highly interested in debt-free payment options. Layaway—a system allowing customers to reserve products with a small deposit and pay over time—emerged as a particularly appealing method. It offered flexibility, budgeting support, and interest-free payments, without requiring a credit check.

I explored an early-stage layaway experience to initially launch for consumer electronics products. Amazon Layaway publicly launched in 2022 through an internal engineering and PM partnership.

My design process:

1. Generative design research (remote async)
2. User journey mapping
3. Sketching/ideation
4. High-fidelity design and prototyping
5. Cross-team due diligence (design systems, payments, detail page team)
6. Usability testing
7. Dev-ready specifications

The challenge:
Despite its appeal, layaway wasn’t well-integrated into modern e-commerce experiences. Customers valued instant ownership, yet also appreciated the control layaway offered. The challenge was to design a system that honored both the practicality of budgeting and the emotional value of anticipation—especially around time-sensitive purchases like holiday gifts.

The solution:
I focused on creating a digital layaway experience that supported flexible payment scheduling and highlighted key customer benefits: interest-free payments, no credit check, and secure product reservation. Design decisions were grounded in insights from user interviews, including use cases like holiday timing, which informed communication strategies around planning and pickup.

Mobile designs:

Additional process artifacts: