United Auto Parts (UAP)

Re-imagining the NAPA B2B customer experience

Type
B2B Customer Portal

Team
3 Designers, 2 Developers + Offshore Team, 1 Business Analyst, 1 Project Manager

Client
United Auto Parts (UAP) Inc. & NAPA Auto Parts

Role
UX/UI Designer (Individual Contributor)

Duration
6 Weeks

Tools
Adobe XD, Mural, Microsoft Power Pages

Project Overview

Our team was contracted by UAP and NAPA Auto Parts to design a modern, connected B2B customer portal using Microsoft’s PowerPages. This project was a first step in the digital transformation for UAP, NAPA, and their garage-owner customers.

The Trio: UAP, NAPA Auto Parts, and Garage Owners

United Auto Parts (UAP) is the distributor behind NAPA Auto Parts, ensuring a reliable supply of automotive parts across Canada. NAPA, as the retail and wholesale brand, bridges the connection to garage owners, providing them with the parts and tools they need for vehicle repairs and maintenance.

This portal was designed to streamline access to NAPA's resources, allowing garage owners to easily engage with loyalty programs and resources.

UAP powers distribution, NAPA connects with stores, and garage owners keep the wheels on the road.

The Challenge

Garage owners like "Sam" depend on NAPA Auto Parts for their day-to-day operations. Yet, the tools and systems provided to support them were outdated and disconnected:

Inefficient Workflows: Tasks like loyalty tracking or warranty claims relied on paper forms and time-consuming phone calls.
Lack of Visibility: Garage owners had no way to track their engagement or view progress across programs.
Access Delays: Internal updates weren’t readily available, creating inefficiencies for both garages and store owners.

For store managers like “Bill,” this meant added manual work, additional follow-ups, and frustration managing multiple disconnected systems.

Fragmented systems created unnecessary friction in daily workflows.

The Solution

We designed a centralized, self-service customer portal that integrates loyalty programs, claim tracking, and NAPA’s internal resources—bringing everything garage owners need into one streamlined experience. The key features we designed in this portal included:

Personalized dashboard: A quick overview of user-specific programs, progress, and rewards.
Loyalty program tracking: Real-time progress on earnings, points, and program eligibility.
Seamless digitalization: Eliminated manual forms and paper-based processes.
Resource hub: A centralized library for NAPA promotions, training, and product information.

Who We’re Designing For

Research & Discovery

To design a solution that truly addresses user and business needs, we conducted a comprehensive research process involving leadership, stakeholders, and end-users. This allowed us to uncover pain points, map workflows, and identify opportunities for improvement.

Stakeholder Workshops
Mapped existing workflows, captured challenges, and aligned on business goals.

Experience Audit & Journey Mapping
Reviewed the existing systems and workflows, capturing screenshots of tools and interfaces currently used by garage owners and store managers to identify pain points in their experience. Visualized how loyalty and warranty programs flowed — highlighting bottlenecks, manual steps, and visibility gaps.

Affinity Mapping
Grouped findings into key themes like usability, data access, and efficiency, helping us define design priorities.

Collaborative Mapping: Breaking down the enrollment process to uncover user pain points and areas of opportunity.

This flow revealed key issues with the warranty claims process, including manual steps that caused delays, unclear claim statuses, and disconnected systems. By mapping this journey, we identified opportunities to automate approvals, enhance claim visibility, and integrate communication between garage owners and store managers. These insights directly shaped features like real-time claim tracking and streamlined submission processes in the redesigned portal.

This final affinity map organizes insights from stakeholder interviews into clear themes like UX issues, data challenges, user needs, and business goals. By grouping related pain points and opportunities, we identified critical areas to focus on, such as streamlining processes, improving usability, and aligning systems with user expectations. This process shaped the foundation for our design solutions.

Key Insights

Disjointed systems forced users to juggle multiple tools for a single task.
Manual dependencies slowed progress and caused delays.
Limited visibility prevented users from tracking progress or resolving issues quickly.

Consolidating five disconnected tools into one cohesive experience.

Design Highlights

Digitizing Manual Processes →

We transformed paper-heavy workflows, from loyalty tracking to warranty claims and program enrollments, into a single digital system.
- Converted multi-step paper forms into guided online flows with clear progress indicators.
- Enabled garage owners to submit, track, and review historical claims directly within the portal.
- Added the ability to upload and reference supporting documentation for each submission.
- Reduced manual store follow-ups through automated updates and centralized records.

Personalized Dashboard →

A smarter starting point that brings together key metrics, resources, and program details.
- Tailored views by user role, access level, and enrolled programs (garage or store).
- Quick links to NAPA resources, training materials, and new product announcements.
- News & alerts for upcoming promotions and key business updates.
- Designed without a formal design system — guided by brand colours, UX research, and NAPA store insights.
- Ensure the dashboard excites, informs and engages users, making them want to explore what NAPA has to offer.

Resource Hub →

A digital library that replaced scattered materials, emails, and manual updates.
- Centralized access to training materials, product information, promotions, and recalls.
- Delivered real-time updates straight from corporate — ensuring everyone, from UAP to NAPA stores to garage owners, had the same information at the same time.
- Designed to feel vibrant, visual, and engaging, turning everyday news into something people wanted to check.
- Reduced miscommunication and created a stronger sense of connection across all users.

Impact

The new portal created a strong digital foundation for UAP and NAPA, simplifying workflows and improving visibility across the network.

Streamlined workflows for both store managers and garage owners.
Improved transparency through real-time program tracking.
Scalable foundation for future digital initiatives at UAP!

Learnings & Reflections

This project reminded me that true modernization isn’t just about digitizing systems; it’s about creating clarity, alignment, and momentum across people, processes, and technology.

I learned how to design within legacy and constraint-heavy environments while still advocating for modern, scalable solutions that move the business forward.
Working without a design system pushed me to be intentional and adaptive, ensuring every visual decision balanced brand integrity with usability.
Mapping end-to-end workflows gave me a deeper appreciation for how supply chains, data systems, and business goals intersect, and how design can simplify that complexity for every user in the chain.
I began thinking beyond interface design, connecting decisions to strategic outcomes such as talent retention, engagement, and long-term digital maturity.
Mentoring a junior designer through this process reinforced how storytelling and confidence in presenting design value are as critical as the work itself.
Above all, this project showed me that human-centred design is a catalyst for change; it can bridge teams, align priorities, and make transformation feel tangible.

Due to confidentiality agreements, detailed designs and internal workflows cannot be publicly shared.
I’d be happy to walk through my process and outcomes in a live conversation.