Associates will find and grab ordered items

Then store items before you or your delivery driver arrive

Finally hand in orders to you or your driver

Along the fulfillment process, our associates are equipped with TC70 devices to help them complete each task.

It is fun to work with the built-in scanning function. In the app, features and functions are put into modules for flexible operation management.

When I got the requirement, I did a stakeholder interview to draw out the problems spaces of the practice:
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1. This task is easy to forget. There is no designated user taking this responsibility, while this task does not appear as a compulsory step along the fulfillment process.

2. The screen doesn’t communicate where to go when user faces the issue. It’s unfriendly for inexperienced users.

3. This feature could have saved time on searching orders. While the associates is handling an order, the experience can be contextual to that.

We came up with the new process of counting bags. Below is a simple visualization helping cross-functional team understand the scenario.

When it comes to the design, I explored different UI patterns for counting, and brought them to critiques for feedback in order to use our expertise to screen out some invalid design.

The first layout provides better visibility, and the second one has less visual noise.
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But the second one has a big weakness - the containers/totes are not always labelled with the numbers, sometimes they are labelled with a 6-digit ID, so the user might lose track of the progress. Moreover, it’s predefining a sequence of counting bags, which is less flexible, or otherwise more complicated.

One other divergence on the the design is the input method. Both input method enjoys an advantage. It’s an interesting question to answer through user test.

The outcome was quite fruitful. Not only because we validated the design to be sufficient, but also we identified an uncovered scenario - stores in certain areas use paper bags instead of plastic bags. The orders won’t be bagged until dispense, because paper bags will turn soggy in fridge at staging phase.

By reviewing the roadmap and priorities, we decided to deliver the design for areas using plastic bags before touching on the paper bag issue.

After reviewing the standard dispensing workflow (flow of handing in order to customer), we were not able to picture how this bagging step should be implemented in the dispensing phase. So we decided to conduct a user research to identify the sweet spot from users’ perspective.

I worked with my product manager and a peer designer to come up with the research plan.

In order to understand associates’ current practice, field observations and interview was designed to collect data about what they do and what they think. And diary study helped identify where the new step should go.

1. Associates are not 100% following the standard workflow. And the way how they carried out the tasks is more efficient.

2. When they dispense order, they scan the container first, then put the container on the trolly, instead of putting all of them on the trolly and scan all at once.

3. Participants counted bags when grabbing each container, because “it is the easiest way”.

Based on the findings, I had a brainstorming session with the product manager and business partner, creating a new operational process, as well as redefining metrics for measuring success.

We mocked and compared 2 different ways of changing the workflow. The first one is more efficient compared to the other one with less moving and stacking actions.

At last, I collaborated with the other designer Loryn who is more familiar with Dispensing process, to summarize and visualize the end-to-end task flow.

The design solution is rather simple to achieve the goal, by prompting a pop-up following each scanning of a container.

It went through 2 rounds of design iterations with tests and reviews before landing on the final design.

Support calls decreased. No call was made to ask where to input bag numbers.
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Customer satisfaction increased. Customer are rarely overcharged. They also spend less time waiting for their orders.

It was a really fun project involving both physical and digital interaction. And incorporating illustration into my work was helpful and inspiring to explain concepts and scenarios, especially for this project. Stakeholders were able to see what’s happening in the workspace and build empathy. I will keep using this strategy in my future work.