Design Sprint: Tablet app & Digital Signage
Overview:
A design sprint was completed to develop solutions addressing issues with navigation and inventory to enhance the customer shopping experience at WINNERS. Learning about their inventory & merchandising processes impacted our approach greatly.
The Ask:
Enhance the in-store shopping experience by incorporating physical & digital solutions.
Duration: 5 Days
Team: Evguenia Anchakova, Lucas Lazdins & Celine Wong
Role: Sprint Facilitator & UX Researcher
Tools: Post-its, Sketchbook, Illustrator, XD
Key Features: Design Sprint, Expert Interviews, Paper Prototyping.
P R O C E S S
Our approach was inspired by Jake Knapp’s Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days.
U N D E R S T A N D
Objective: Research problems to identify specific pain points, How Might We’s , & define end goals.
An experience map which narrowed the broad challenge into specific targets. It addressed actors and stages for completion, providing direction to create ‘How Might We’ statements.
GUErrilla Research
With a limited time frame (1hr), I led quick qualitative research bringing our team to WINNERS and conducting:
Ethnographic Research
Observing customer behaviour.
Documenting employee procedures.
3 Expert Interviews
Manager, stock & fitting room associates.
Questions & quotes addressing: day-to-day operations, frustrations, & customers’ FAQ.
Staff were seen using steps throughout the store switching sign displays in the afternoon- indicating task time required.
Labeling & signage leading customers to undesired merchandise.
Upon arrival, overhead signage was not bold or fully visible to direct customers to departments immediately.
INSIGHTS
Space
Time
Department space & signage are modified every morning based on new stock.
“ Having disorganized racks, spaces, & shelves leave customers & employees frustrated.”
Time is most valuable in operations but daily tasks inhibit employees from helping valued customers.
“ We don’t have the cash flow or time to have employees standing around departments just to help customers. “
Info
Stock
Customer frustrations stem from lack of assistance in finding items, ambiguity of stock, & mislabeling.
“The only way we can help find specific items is if an employee has seen it and remembers where it is. Even then, it could have already moved.”
Currently, there is no way to track sales for specific stock or measure inventory within stores.
“Warehouse inventory tracking doesn’t connect with our in-store tracking POS. And not knowing inventory or shipment product knowledge is the biggest pain point. ”
This stage was most valuable to our sprint because I realized in order to help customers, we must first help employees & understand back end operations.
S K E T C H
By asking our team to sketch ideas, we got inspired, conducted quick reviews, & selected key elements to build upon.
Focus Areas:
1) Light Displays 2) Efficient Sign Changes 3) Navigation
D E C I D E
The goal of this phase was to decide which solution to prototype with idea critiques, solution sketch voting & storyboarding.
SOLUTION
Incorporate a combination of in-store digital displays (i.e. shelf, ceiling) operated via a tablet application that is to be used by in-store WINNERS employees. This would allow them to complete important day-to-day tasks (i.e. merchandising) more efficiently. In return, employees would be available to help customers, & improve navigation & organization for customers.
P R O T O T Y P I N G
Paper
Gathering current WINNERS customers, I carried out a card sort to inform the layout design of how customers would organize the store according to existing departments.
I then created a prototype showing how circular digital displays, colour coding, & tagging would be incorporated (minus the marshmallows).
Digital
Features:
• Controls & customizable content shown on displays remotely.
• Overview: Helps keep track of all the displays in the store.
• Modular app resembles that of the physical displays shown in-store. This enables quick, intuitive UX for employees.
V A L I D A T E
The final concept solution was presented to potential users (3 WINNERS employees), gathering feedback from usability testing.
Documenting observations, behaviour & reactions, I compiled user feedback & identified patterns.
Further exploration of future micro-interactions, onboarding methods, & UI components occurred.
N E X T S T E P S :
1. Present solutions to WINNERS Reps & Stakeholders.
2. Iterate & develop according to user feedback.
3. L A U N C H !
4. …might we dig into warehouse processes next?
R E F L E C T I O N S
The exploratory phase using eye-tracking was helpful, but in our sprint research, expert interviews proved to be much more valuable in discovering underlying issues. The goal of our was no longer to create a digital solution for customers, but rather, how might we create a solution to relieve employees of tasks to provide better customer service.
In a time that is heavily reliant and focused on digital products as an end solution, we must first identify at what point the problem begins.
Design sprints show value in how quickly a team can discover, ideate, design, & prototype for fast fails or successes. It’s extremely collaborative and relies on great creativity.