Industry Sponsored • B2B • UX design • Research
Personalizing shipping and logistics for home-based Micro and Small Businesses, accommodating varying maturity levels in their operations.
| MY ROLE: | PROJECT TYPES: | PROJECT TEAM: | DURATION: |
|---|---|---|---|
| UX/UI design lead, Contextual Research & User Research, User testing | MS-HCI Program Course Project Industry Sponsor: UPS (Clients: Sean Perryman, Hayoung Woo) |
Group: Liyuan Sun(Lead Designer) Hannah(Research), Saba(Research), Stephanie(PM), Jingxuan(Design) | Aug. 2023 - Dec.2023(4 months) |
In a core course at Georgia Tech, 'Research Methods for HCI,' my team collaborated with UPS as an industry sponsor, addressing a given problem statement and devising an evidence-based design solution.
We worked with UX research analysts from the JEDI (Journey Experience & Design Innovation) Team. Focusing on Business to Consumer shippers who primarily operate out of their own homes, our team's prototype garnered commendation from both the UPS design team and clients.
In 2019, small businesses comprised 44% of the U.S. economy. Post-COVID-19, the logistics sector increased support for MSEs, spurring digital growth alongside e-commerce.
For instance,FedEx partnered with BigCommerce to offer shipping discounts, aiding SME digitalization, while UPS enhanced its e-commerce services by acquiring Roadie for same-day delivery in 2021.
UPS came to us in hopes to improve services for diverse small businesses, aiming to keep them on UPS.com instead of third-party options. They provided data from a study on MSEs with annual shipping costs below $100,000. We enriched this data with insights from online small business communities, including Reddit subreddits, leading to the identification of six crucial considerations for MSE shipping and logistics.
To understand what MSEs may need from UPS.com, our project began with this initiative:
We redesigned UPS.com website dashboard to streamline shipment activities and services, providing a centralized and easily accessible platform to the profiles and needs of Micro & Small Enterprises (MSEs) operating from home. This redesign actively promotes direct relationship-building between MSEs and UPS.com, aligning seamlessly with business perspectives.
After creating user accounts, we developed a user guide for the main dashboard. It explains key features, including interactive widgets, and provides step-by-step instructions on tasks such as replacing, resizing, and relocating widgets. This guide is especially helpful for MSE owners with limited technology experience.
The default view of the dashboard prioritizes essential functions, with interactive widget sizes and locations tailored to MSEs' common shipping priorities. This design ensures that users can easily perform and understand their shipping activities without additional steps.
The Quote Calculator widget enables users to swiftly estimate shipping costs with smart recommendations based on package details. Users can quickly explore and initiate their shipping process.
The widgets displays real-time statuses of active outbound packages, offering a quick overview of each shipment's progress on the dashboard.
Streamline supply reordering with a single click on the dashboard. New users receive recommendations based on their business profile, and multiple options are easily navigated through arrow buttons.
The Notification board remain fixed at the top of the dashboard, it serves as a reminder for user actions, such as leaving packages for a prescheduled pickup, and alerts for urgent updates, such as package delays.
Shipment Management feature offers a visual summary of shipments. The Table vs. Board view suits both experienced and newer MSEs, providing efficient volume control and an action-oriented grid. Users customize views with a simple toggle, elevating shipping efficiency and user experience.
To understood the context of the problem, we conducted exploratory research to identify areas for focused in-depth study.
Understand the paths and steps to completion of tasks within the UPS website.
Evaluate shipping and logistics features across UPS and its competitors.
Explore MSEs' shipping decisions and their experiential interactions with UPS Stores
List and analyze each step in the user's shipping process.
We engaged with 6 participants at a pop-up event in Atlanta's Piedmont Park to get first-hand information about their experience, pain points, needs, and expectations for the shipping process.
We then used categorized and coded data in Google Sheets, then derived key findings.
We synthesized all the data gathered from our surveys and interviews and organized them based on their affinities, to find patterns and common themes.
MSEs favor centralized order management systems to streamline efficiency and reduce the need for engaging with multiple carriers.
Convenience, reliability, safety, cost-efficiency, and transparency are MSEs' top priorities in shipping and logistics.
MSEs' shipping priorities and preferences evolve with their business maturity.
MSEs seek comprehensive control over their shipping process, emphasizing the need for detailed tracking and delivery information.
Using our data, we shaped two Personas and journey maps: one for a small and one for a micro business. These charts highlight their key traits and shipping, helping us spot unique needs and design opportunities.
Guided by our design objectives and research insights, I led a brainstorming workshop where we applied the SCAMPER technique to generate solution sketches. These were thematically organized on a whiteboard and, through a sticky note voting process, we distilled the ideas down to the top four. These selections are set for further refinement into sophisticated solutions addressing identified challenges.
Leveraging input from 3 UPS experts and 4 HCI experts, our team assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of our initial concepts. This collaborative review led to a refined design approach, catering to Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) with a personalized widget-based dashboard, aligning with our core design goals for an intuitive and transformative user experience on UPS.com.
We invited 1 small business owner and 1 micro business owner to participate in our think aloud and cognitive walkthroughs feedback session, gauging their reactions to the wireframe and collecting their valuable feedback. After the feedback sessions, we categorized our notes to identify user positive and negative feedback.
The dashboard's professional design and interactive widgets receive positive feedback for enhancing user experience. Nevertheless, they express confusion due to an overload of widgets and unclear personalization concepts, resulting in a steep learning curve.
Users express that while they like the idea of making the dashboard their own, the personalization features are not as straightforward as they need them to be.
Users report uncertainty in both the function and customization of widgets, highlighting a communication gap in how these features should be used and modified.
Users report a desire for consistent widget layouts that also adapt to the varying shipping volumes of their businesses.
Based on current UPS design system and user feedbacks, I further refined the user flow and created Mid-fi prototypes to demonstrate our refined design requirements.
Before we started making the final design for user testing, we conducted an expert evaluation session, involving two UPS UX researchers and one HCI expert, utilizing heuristic evaluation. Additionally, we conducted a design review with 18 members of the UPS teams to identify usability and design issues.
👨🏻👩🏻 2 UPS UX Researchers
👱🏻♀️1 HCI Expert
👨🏻💼18 UPS Design Experts
The onboarding sequence guides users through the process of exploring widget interactivity, teaching them how to adjust widget size and placement, and how to remove widgets as needed.
To assess whether our design solution aligns with our objectives, we conducted moderated user tests with four participants, consisting of two small business and two micro business owners. Utilizing think-aloud protocols during a Teams session, we assigned them four specific tasks. Their performance was evaluated using both quantitative and qualitative metrics.
I found user research invaluable for diving deep into user opinions on our designs, especially the nuanced, qualitative feedback. The key lies in choosing the right user testing methods to make the most of this feedback, refining our designs accordingly. It’s vital to foster a tight-knit collaboration between designers and researchers, focusing on the most impactful criteria to assess our design’s functionality, features, and aesthetics.
Navigating the differences between what our business aims to achieve and what users actually want proved challenging yet essential. Strategically prioritizing our design criteria helped me bridge this gap, steering towards a design that meets both sets of goals without compromise.
During usability testing sessions for prototypes, feedback from both users and experts is invaluable. Users may not offer professional advice for heuristic evaluations, but their insights are essential. Combining perspectives from both groups enhances the product's success more comprehensively.
