Jimmy John’s: A Connected Digital Ordering Experience

Jimmy John’s promise of fast service set the standard for the digital experience. Ordering needed to feel natural, show the brand’s personality, and give customers the information they needed. I combined these priorities in the visual design, using clear order entry, sandwich photos, easy navigation, and flexible brand and social content.

The challenge was to make Jimmy John’s easy to recognize and keep every action quick and simple. I focused on this throughout the project, guiding the visual design and ordering structure around the customer journey. This visual promise was present in every part of the system.

The redesign linked customer tasks across the public site, online ordering, location finder, the JJ Store, and brand content. Keeping things consistent became a main focus and shaped the flow of the project.

We mapped out the steps from finding a menu item to starting an order, entering an address, picking a store, customizing, adding to the cart, checking out, and confirming. Tasks like store, catering, sustainability, company, and location all supported this main journey.

It was important to make the flow from browsing to ordering smooth. Each customer choice needed to move forward with them. We suggested passing a selected store or menu item from the public site into OrderTalk, like using the URL query string when customers entered the ordering page. We also explained how a meal built in the nutrition tool could keep sandwich choices, ingredient changes, and sides in the order. The goal was to let customers start from their nutrition results with those choices saved. By defining how context would carry forward, we gave both interface and engineering teams a clear plan and kept the experience goals in mind during planning.

The challenge with responsive design was clear: how should the experience work as screens changed? Snap-to designs used fixed layouts, while fluid designs let components resize and stack. We compared flexibility, ease of updates, client involvement, and future screen needs.

During review, we presented two snap-to and two fluid options. The first snap-to design offered a clean, modular, order-first path. The client then needed to choose a direction and move forward.

This comparison gave the client more than just a set of homepages. Each option included a desktop layout and mobile versions, showing how navigation, ordering controls, images, and content changed with screen size. The decision linked brand expression with the behavior the team would build and maintain, setting up the service logic that followed.

The ordering flows broke a complex service into clear steps: location, delivery or pickup, menu selection, customization, group ordering, payment, and confirmation. We clarified each step before moving into detailed design and introduced the next service steps. My job was to keep these steps focused on the customer’s experience.

Address entry came before store selection, then branched to delivery or pickup. Location became part of the service decision early in the journey.

The address step showed a real tradeoff between design and engineering. The ordering partner’s verification process handled valid addresses that mapping services might miss, incorrect coordinates, and overlapping delivery areas. We suggested moving autocomplete earlier in the flow and keeping verification in the background. The goal was to make this step easier for customers and make sure service rules guided store fulfillment. Balancing convenience with accuracy shaped the feature plan.

From there, the feature plan covered everyday details like picking a time, customizing toppings, seeing extra costs, adding sides, reviewing the subtotal, and editing items before checkout. Returning customers could repeat and adjust earlier orders. Guest checkout let people finish a purchase, with the option to create an account during checkout. These choices balanced convenience and control. The result was a detailed ordering plan that teams could review with Jimmy John’s and OrderTalk before implementation. I helped set up that structure.

The visual system added shared navigation and ordering controls to merchandise and catering. Each special journey had its own structure but stayed part of the same experience model. This extended the shared approach to new services.

Catering needed to fit within the ordering model. The feature plan allowed both standard and catering items in one order. The detailed flow separated platters, boxed lunches, and party subs into their own selection paths. The shared structure made these choices familiar and left room for the details each one needed. Group ordering added another layer. One person coordinated the order while others joined through an invitation link and added their meals. The proposed flows made it clear who was the coordinator and who was invited, and showed order timing, participation status, and payment choices. This was both a service-design and a menu-design challenge. The experience needed to help several people complete one order, using the shared structure for a more complex path. I helped shape that structure.

Our engineering recommendation defined responsive templates for the key pages and steps in the new ordering flow. These templates matched the public site’s design and worked across the same browsers and devices, with an HTML, CSS, and JavaScript handoff to the ordering partner. This brought the design work directly into technical planning.

This made the handoff clear. The public site and ordering platform could share an experience, even though different systems handled the work. Passing customer selections forward and defining consistent front-end states gave the teams practical requirements to discuss, refine, and deliver. My direction helped connect the pieces and carry the design intent into delivery planning.

In my executive role, I brought together brand expression, responsive behavior, ordering logic, content systems, and technical planning around one customer journey. I unified the sections into a single direction. To align teams and stakeholders, I led shared reviews of flows, comps, and technical recommendations. These reviews gave us a clear way to raise questions and keep one experience direction in discussions with Jimmy John’s and OrderTalk.

This work created a cohesive digital journey, covering public-site discovery, ordering, responsive design, the JJ Store, catering, location services, and brand content. User flows clarified decisions and transitions. Wireframes gave structural clarity. Desktop and mobile comps made creative and behavioral choices clear for stakeholders. Technical recommendations carried that intent into the platform conversation and linked the work back to the overall journey I helped direct.

I still use these principles: understand what customers want, clarify their choices, and make sure their preferences carry over smoothly across teams, devices, and systems. For Jimmy John’s, that’s how we made fast feel connected. That’s how I approach connected experiences.