Customizing Order Management
Streamlining internal order fulfillment processes using customization in a legacy system
Background
I was a part of the Order Fulfillment teams at our retail company, focused on employee-facing web applications. We found that employees print out stacks of orders, manually monitoring them for complex, unique issues. This led to unnecessary workflows for an organization trying to reducing cost.
Client
My Role
Tools
Figma, Miro, Jira
Confidential*
UX Designer (1 of 3)
*In cooperation with my terms of employment, client information is omitted. The material here is substituted or modified from the professional work it represents. Please reach out for details.
Discovery Research
Using observational user research methods, we also found users carrying backpacks full of printed orders, and sharing Excel spreadsheets with custom notes for each order.
Research findings, contextual interviews
Problem Statement
We have observed that users have no freedom to organize orders within our application. This is a problem, because they will spend unnecessary time and effort manually organizing and tracking their work.
Ideation Workshops
Without judgement or hesitation, we ideated solutions. Some ideas were extensions of existing features, while others were new projects altogether.
Considering technical constraints and perceived value, in spite of the interaction cost for “Saved Orders,” it was voted the best solution.
Storyboard
To align with cross-functional parters, and quickly pitch the design solution, I created a storyboard of our primary user flow.
Storyboard, order analyst discovers new Saved Orders feature
MVP Prototype
Following our design system, and patterns already set in the application, I built out the MVP. With usability testing in mind, I tailored the prototype towards key user tasks.
Video, saving orders and viewing saved orders list
Survey and Usability Testing Results
45min
estimated time saved monitoring orders per day
5,000+
users accessed in the first week live
63%
respondents using the Watchlist feature daily
In addition to overall positive feedback for our MVP, we discovered some pain-points to address in contextual interviews.
participants had trouble identifying whose list they were viewing
5/8
preferred organizing the list themselves, instead of search/filters
6/8
expected the ability to add orders from the list page
8/8
Design Iterations
Annotations, iterations based on testing and post-MVP surveys
Next Steps
With unlimited time and resources, I had many ideas of what Saved Orders could turn into. The research pointed out some interesting opportunities, including “high-effort” ideas from our brainstorming workshop.
The one thing is it would be nice to assign a specific order to a coworker...
– Retail Manager
I always want to know if an item comes off backorder.
– Employee Ops
Assigning orders to others would save me time.
Strongly Agree – Strongly Disagree
It’s easy to stay up to date on my saved orders.
Strongly Agree – Strongly Disagree
Video, concepts for assigning orders, and configuring notifications
Design Impact
Overall this was my favorite change [our client] has had in my entire time here and I cannot stress enough how useful it is.
– Retail User
Saved Orders is one of the best features they've come up with in OMA. It's making our job easier.
– Sales Consultant
Please don't ever take Saved Orders away! It has been so helpful.
– Corporate
45 min
estimated time saved monitoring orders per day
5,000+
users accessed feature in the first week