Jean Coutu & Brunet

Mobile appHealthTwo brands
Two pharmacy brands, one shared foundation, and prescriptions the whole family can manage in a few taps.
  • 4.8★Jean Coutu Santé on the App Store (Canada)
  • ~17,000App Store (Canada) ratings behind that score
  • 2brands kept distinct
  • 1shared foundation underneath
Jean Coutu and Brunet are two of Québec's best-known pharmacy banners. Their two health apps had one promise to keep.

That promise: making it simple to manage your own prescriptions and your family's, in one place. The mandate was to redesign both from the ground up, keeping two distinct brands on a single technological foundation. As a consultant for Nmédia, I orchestrated the design sprints and the user research. Nmédia's team designed the UX and the prototype that guided its developers. Nobody opens a pharmacy app for fun. The goal was to make it the shortest errand of their day.

  • Managing your own treatmentRenew in a few taps, get told when it's ready, never stand in line for nothing.
  • Caring for kidsSeveral family members in one account, so the whole household's prescriptions live in one place.
  • Helping an aging parentAccess a loved one's file and handle renewals for them, without juggling two phones.
Orchestrate the design sprints. Sprint workshops with both organizations to agree on what the apps had to do first, and what could wait.
Study real families. Research on how people actually manage prescriptions, their own and their family's, across very different life situations.
Prototype and test. A clickable prototype, put in front of real users over several rounds before a single line of code was written.
Hand it to the builders. The validated prototype became the blueprint for Nmédia's developers, and the client teams learned the methods along the way.

Two brands, one foundation

Each brand keeps its own look, voice and customers. Underneath, both apps share the same features, so every improvement ships to both at once.

Jean CoutuIts own brand, voice and customers
BrunetIts own brand, voice and customers
  • Prescriptions and renewals
  • Family members in one account
  • Health record
  • "Ready" notifications
  • Payment and delivery
  • Drug statements for taxes

Shared foundation

Where the two apps are today

Two brands, the same journeys: your health record and your family's, renewing a prescription in a few taps, and a notification when it's ready.

Jean Coutu Health: the health record, with shortcuts to refill, add a prescription and tax receipts, and a flu and COVID-19 vaccination offer
Jean Coutu: the health record.
Jean Coutu Health: a family member's prescriptions, each with its last service and renewals left, and a button to proceed with the renewal
Jean Coutu: renewing a loved one's prescription.
Brunet MaSanté: with a few clicks, renew and pay your prescriptions anywhere, over the MaSanté record with quick access to renew and add
Brunet: the MaSanté record.
Brunet MaSanté: the notification settings, to get an email or a text when prescriptions are ready
Brunet: a notification when it's ready.

Screens from the apps' App Store pages. The archived Google Play pages show the old app until mid-2023 and this design by September 2024; it is still the one in use.

The shared foundation held. Years later, both apps still get their updates together, on the same day. Two brands, one release party.

Credits

Design sprints and UX research
Jean-Sébastien Daigle · Nmédia
UX design, prototype and app development
Nmédia
Client
Jean Coutu and Brunet