Scaling distribution
This application was designed to scale the management of international shipping rules for the Operations team at Workhuman. This team is responsible for the distribution of merchandise and gift cards globally for Workhuman costumers.
Development methodology Agile
Team crossfuctional
3 developers - 2 backend 1 front end
1 scrum master
1 product owner
UX designer (myself)
3 Stakeholders
Team was distributed across 2 locations; developers were based in Belarus and the rest were based in Dublin.
Objective.
I was assigned to this team as lead Product designer to build an application for managing international shipping rules. Before this, rules management was done via excel sheets that were connected to a data base. The manual handling resulted in human error, miss-deliveries, wrong rules being entered and data loss.
Project goal
Deliver a Scaleable application to manage thousands of shipping rules and addresses.
Work.
Research method
To gain a deeper understanding of the problem at hand, we needed to understand how the employees are currently doing their job. What problems are they experiencing? What are their most important tasks? What makes them feel successful?
The method I chose to unearth this was 1-1 interviews combined with observation of a total of 8 user interviews.
Observations
Task flow.
Frequency of usage on a daily and weekly basis.
Before and after doing the job; trigger identification.
For the analysis of the research I used an affinity mapping on a wall and collaborated with another designer to ensure that i wasn't missing any insights.
Deliverables
Delivered 4 User journeys that focused on primary tasks.
2 personas that captured different roles and permissions.
Research handout for stakeholders with a summery of all insights gathered prioritised based on the task urgency.
Design.
In the flow of Edit address/rule there was a particular interaction that allowed inline editing of the rules in the table view. As a team we assumed that inline editing will be the best way to do this. However, when we put it through usability testing we learned that most of the users found it confusing. As a result, we created a separate form to handle these actions. we then repeated the test again. In the second revision we found minor usability issues and were able to fix them as well. Once we completed these the flow was much smoother and easier for our users.
Project outcomes.
We increase the accuracy of the rules, by eliminating human errors. These rules were now also validated within the app.
We saved on costs, there were a reduction of 15% in incorrect deliveries in the first month of launching the app! There was also less time needed for onboarding and training costs now.
There was a significant increase in productivity and job satisfaction for the employees. We helped these teams focus on other aspects of their role and not on tedious tasks of entering data into excels
We reduced training costs by releasing an on-boarding process
Reflections.
Overall the creation process of this app was enjoyable as my team got the opportunity to help another team in the company. The research and design phase were fast moving due to tight deadlines, but as a team together we were able to deliver a tool that made a difference.
