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CVS Apple Watch Graphic.png

Apple Watch app for CVS Health

Overview

In a 24-hour turnaround, I partnered with Product and Engineers to design, develop, and release "Upcoming Appointments" for our Apple Watch app.

Skills

Design Systems Creation, UX Design Strategy, Negotiation with Product, Collaboration with Engineers, UI in Figma

Time Frame

24 hours (afternoon of 7/16/25 to noon 7/17/25)

Role

Senior Experience Design — I jumped in when my team was low on capacity to quickly design and deliver this new work

Outcome

  • Patients can now quickly check their upcoming appointments on Apple Watch

  • I created the first foundation of our team's Apple Watch design system with CVS styling and components

  • Impact of this fast turnaround and collaboration: This collaboration proved how fast we can move with a small team — and the power of creating a design system to quickly iterate and deliver.

  • More opportunities for Apple Watch: Apple Watch hasn't been the highest priority for upper leadership, but this quick turnaround caught their eye, now putting Apple Watch on the roadmap for improvements.

Engineer concept​ (video)

Final result after design (video)

Problem

Patients need to take multiple steps to see their upcoming appointments in the app

Upcoming Appts Flows.png

The Apple Watch offers patients a chance to quickly view information without having to take out their phone.

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I mapped out the flows to show how there would be less steps to take on the Apple Watch to see "Upcoming Appointments" compared to the iOS/Android app or searching through email/texts.

24-hour turnaround

Morning: Engineers took it upon themselves to create a concept

Dev screens.HEIC

Product had this item in the backlog for a while, but Naresh and Bhanu (our engineers) had extra capacity during a sprint and took it upon themselves to quickly create a concept of what "Upcoming Appointments" would look like on Apple Watch by replicating the "Prescriptions" screen.

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They showed their concept to Himanshu and Carly (Product members) who were excited by the concept.

 

The problem? They asked if we could squeeze it into the next release (a deadline of tomorrow at noon!) instead of waiting another 2 weeks.

Afternoon: I quickly mapped out additional requirements and user flows

Himanshu and Carly asked if anyone could help, but since everyone was low on capacity, I stepped in to review the design and adjust the content based on authentication scenarios.

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I wrote down the list of requirements and all the questions I had based on the information I had — including a flow of the authentication scenarios:

  • Level of Authentication 1 / Guest: Based on security and health privacy issues, people who haven't created a full account with CVS would need to view this information on their phone — so we needed a screen to accommodate that

  • Level of Authentication 2: For patients who had a full account, they could end up in a scenario where they either have no appointments or have signed out of the phone app (in which they wouldn't be able to see appointments)

  • Information within cards: Based on our CVS Health app "Upcoming Appointments" card, I took the most important information (clinic, patient, date/time, location/virtual) to incorporate into the watch cards to be as consistent with the app as possible and meet user needs.

Requirements.heic
LOA1 and LOA2.png

End of Day: I created a mini-design system based on community Figma files

Our design team didn't have a CVS-styled Apple Watch design system. The existing sections in the Apple Watch didn't have any design involvement and were just coded by engineers, so this was new to us.

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I searched for community Figma files, and then created my own mini-design system of components using CVS styled text, icons, and colors.

Apple Watch Kit.HEIC
Apple Watch Kit 2.HEIC
Components.heic

The mini-design system I created included text styles, icons, and variants of list-view cards.

Morning: Putting the designs together and quickly iterating with Product members

The next morning, I quickly threw the components together in frames with auto-layout — accounting for the level of authentication error scenarios.

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Himanshu, Carly, and I got on a call where I tweaked the content of the error scenarios and slightly adjusted the size of the text.

Designs.heic

Before Noon: Live coding & design QA call with Engineers

Design QA.HEIC

Naresh, Bhanu, and I needed to review quickly — so we huddled over Slack. Bhanu shared his screen while going through each "Upcoming Appointments" page and scenario.

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In order to QA quickly — I took screenshots of his screen and annotated them in Figma — then sent it back to them over the call.

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Within 30 minutes, their coded concept looked exactly like the designs.

Release at noon

We successfully incorporated "Upcoming Appointments" into the release window​.

Next steps: Iterate & build upon our mini-design system

Our goal, as always, is to ship to learn & iterate. We'll monitor customer feedback, while iterating internally by adding actions such as:

  • Complete "PreCheck-in" before the visit

  • Add to calendar

  • Get directions

  • Schedule a new appointment

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This opens more opportunities to help patients quickly access information in Apple Watch, and is now a priority on our roadmap to explore further.

 

The mini-design system I built will serve as a foundation that can grow with future features.

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