This Ideation Workshop aimed to improve Product Traceability and Data Analytics for the warehouse and support staff.
I was the UX designer assigned to the Ideation Workshop. I assisted the UX Director with workshop activities and created the final prototype based on workshop outcomes.
- Create a prototype that allows warehouse staff to access the data they need to complete their daily tasks.
UX Pin
Miroboard
Invision
MS Powerpoint
HID Global is a manufacturer of secure identity and access management products. HID customer support staff need help tracing details of products due to the vast amount of data available. When a customer services rep investigates customer issues, they must search several “systems” to find the necessary information.
Management requested the help of the UX team to determine if a technology solution could solve their problems. One of the first steps was scheduling an Idea workshop with strategic members of the warehouse team.
At the start, we reviewed the agenda and meeting guidelines/ guardrails. We ensured the team became acquainted so everyone was familiar with the team members and roles in attendance.
To better understand the challenge, we asked the experts on the team to articulate their process in customer support scenarios. We spoke with the Director of Operations Solutions, Technical Support Manager, Quality Manager, and Senior Software Engineer. We asked the team to list some commonly reported issues.
We had them describe their involvement in the problem-solving/ troubleshooting process. I made notes of the roles involved in the different stages of the process and the tasks performed by them.
We asked team members to describe what they thought success and failure would look like for the project.
-Solution is scalable -Global Adoption -Cost - effective
-Process is cumbersome -Slow performance -Data silos
Team members described the current process versus their ideal process. They used stickies to highlight what they thought described areas of value for the potential solution.
-Error Prone -Time-consuming -Complex
-Simple -Seamless -Efficient
We mapped out the challenge taking into account all of the roles involved in the process.
Team members took “How might we...” or “HMW” notes throughout the workshop. HMW notes encourage team members to reframe problems as opportunities to innovate.
Fig 6. How might we notes from the team.
We identified two different paths and split the team into two groups. While CSRs are responsible for solving customer problems when customers call in, the Production Analysts hope to recognize trends for data and use them to prevent future issues and solve current ones.
Fig 5. Customer Service flow (left), Analyst flow (right).
Customer Service flow(Problem solvers)
Desired Features
-Links to other systems
-Items must be traceable (Origin info)
-Searchable by Purchase Order or part number.
Desired Features
We allowed each team member to demo parts of apps they found useful, and features they thought could inspire the new solution.
Fig 4. Sketches of the parts of software the team likes.
-Dominos for their order tracking
-Custom Miro board for tracking issues
-Seadoo, for excitement and solidity
-Nissan Leaf (car) dashboard, for simplicity
-HEB, for the convenience of shopping
-Etsy, for their product page
-Owlet, for the intuitiveness of their data visualization
The team contributed suggestions for features they thought would be useful for the solution. We then sorted them into groups.
Fig 5. Customer Service flow (left), Analyst flow (right).
-Inventory Management
-Issues logs/ Ticketing
-Order Lookup
-Work Order Assignment
-Data Sorting
-Reporting
-Analytics Dashboard
We had the team create a three-step solution and display the results for the team to see. We then had team members vote on the part of the solution they found most helpful.
Fig 6.Solution sketches from team members.
We storyboarded the experience using input from the team. There was a healthy team discussion which helped everyone to align on the experience.
Fig 7. Storyboarding of a Customer Service Rep’s discovery scenario.
We stitched together the prototype in powerpoint.
Fig 8. Search Results page from rapid prototype made in MS Powerpoint.
The team tested both prototypes with real users for five user testing sessions. The feedback from users was overall positive, and they felt the solutions would help improve their workflow. They liked the materials page for having helpful information.
The search page was also well-liked because of the presence of images and other formats to display the search query results.
Areas for improvement:
Better organization of the search results.
-Flushed out multiple ideas and documented the outcomes.
-Helped the team align on a solution to a shared problem.
-Promoted alignment & empathy with co-workers in Warehouse Dept.
- Refine Prototype
- Build a working prototype to continue with testing.
