Date: Jul - Oct 2020
Product: PC Express Delivery Ops Portal
Role: Lead Design Researcher
Skills & Methods: Semi-structured stakeholder interviews, Affinity mapping, Jobs-to-be-done
Artifacts: Miro board synthesis, Jobs-to-be-done statements, Research findings deck
When PC Express (PCX) Delivery first launched, we used a third-party solution to act as a hub between our systems and third-party logistics (e.g. DoorDash) to fulfill orders. However, it soon became clear that this did not work as intended.
For example, our colleagues could not see the end-to-end order process within the third-party solution. They had to go into multiple systems to diagnose and resolve order issues. This process is time-consuming and prone to human errors.
As such, the team decided to quickly build their own operations portal to replace the third-party solution.
I initiated an internal research project on my own time so that the core team (Product, Design and Engineering) has a shared understanding of the ops portal's goals and its users. This is the foundation that will guide the product and design decisions.
I led and planned the design research with the guidance from our Design Research Lead.
Product has already defined the initial requirements of the ops portal. So I sat down with them to identify colleagues who are actively managing delivery orders and how they would fit within the user roles.
As the ops portal's users are our internal team, conducting stakeholder interviews would be the best way to understand their needs and pain points. I crafted research questions based on the knowledge I gathered and made sure to have unique, role-specific questions for each distinct user type.
I conducted 8 one-on-one stakeholder interviews with those who are involved with managing delivery orders in their day-to-day.
The findings generally lined up with the assumptions going into the research. Without the ability to see the end-to-end order process in one place, colleagues have no visibility into the order issues and no clear way to understand why orders are cancelled. This creates the need for manual interventions, coordination between teams and going into multiple systems to resolve issues.
There are two overarching types of users of the ops portal: support users and business users. Support users include those who are proactively resolving order issues before they reach the customers, and those who are reactive when customers call. Business users, on the other hand, monitor the data and look for trends in order to identify opportunities to create value for both the business and customers.
One new insight we uncovered is that ops portals are generally not designed to work on mobile. When support users are on call during off-hours and don't have access to their laptops, they need a simple way to manage orders on their smartphone.
I shared the research findings to the core cross-functional team. I encouraged discussions and feedback during my presentation. This back and forth allowed us to align on the user group definitions, ops portal goals, overall business metrics, and how they ladder up to the high level PCX Delivery business goal.
Just because it wasn't asked of you doesn't mean you can't do it. If you think it's important, go for it.
Collaborating on the definitions and outcomes with our cross-functional peers is much more impactful than simply telling them what you found.