Release Notes
First, there was an increased awareness of storewide communications.
Second, there was a significant decrease in customer waiting times.
Third, service rates rose by 10%.
Outcome Overview
The Problem
Employees are not able to keep up with POS changes real time. Given the dynamic nature of a sales environment this is essential.
At the start of the project, Best Buy store employees are overloaded with many communications via a number of different applications This made it difficult to keep up with Release notes and updates. This was the working hypotheses at the beginning of the project.
Discovery
Understanding employee perception of communication regarding app changes and updates.
To validate the hypothesis and to get a better understanding of how employees currently receive communication updates, we talked to store employees firsthand.
As a user experience designer, I partnered with a researcher to document findings during the in-person interview sessions with 18 store employees. All participants also completed an anonymous survey. This survey was designed to gather information on their awareness and engagement with various communication tools.
A breakdown of the number of store employees by gender, roles, years of experience and demographic
Research Insights
Employees use a wide variety of tools to stay aware of application changes and updates.
Most store employees feel informed, but some report occasional difficulty staying aware of minor changes. For example,
Opportunities exists to better align communications with preferred learning methods. We found out that most employees prefer to learn through the primary system they have identified.
The insights we discovered from our interviews, validated our earlier assumptions that employees did have trouble keeping up with all updates communicated. However, it was interesting to note that a lot of employees received updates from their co-workers than through some of the online tools provided. This raised two key concerns. One, how useful are existing communication media. Two, are employees receiving all and/or the right information?
An employee quote from one of the interview sessions, speaking on her preferred learning communication method being through the system.
An anonymous survey distributed to interview participants illustrates usage of a wide variety of tools used to stay aware of application changes and updates. The survey indicates highest engagement with the following communication methods: Education Hub and Store/Team Meetings. The names of the tools have been edited to protect the privacy of the business.
Recommendations
In-app release notes allows all store employees to access all store communications in one place.
In-app update communication must supplement(or altogether replace) other communications methods so as not to increase employee frustration with dispersed and inaccessible communications.
Updates must be provided so as not to interrupt users but also so as not to be ignored completely.
Design Phase
The goal was to satisfy three criteria: Peripheral, Accessible and Intuitive
I focused on wire framing the transaction screens and shortlisted three concepts. The goal was to deploy the release notes as non-intrusively as possible. For this, the feature must satisfy three criteria: peripheral, accessible and intuitive.
Peripheral, in the sense that the feature does not compete with anything on the active page.
Accessible, in that an employees’ workflow isn’t broken to access said feature but complemented by it.
Intuitive, in that the feature leverages the employee’s existing knowledge of common usage patterns.
Register & Tablet
Some of the desktop different solutions I explored to solve the problem.
Mobile
Some of the mobile solutions I explored.
Final Designs
Third Wireframe Option Won Out. Fewest Clicks
After a few team testing iterations, Option C won out, scoring high on periphery, intuition and the accessibility criteria defined earlier, ultimately being executed with the fewest clicks. The other options failed to meet this criteria.
Option A - Not easily accessible: This will take them out of their current workflow in order to access the solution, thus reducing productivity.
Option B - Crowded the active page: The active page already houses the customer's name, menu, customer search options. This solution worked well on desktop but when it came to mobile, there was no space to accommodate it in the header.
Register & Tablet
The final design that was implemented on desktop.
Mobile
The final design implemented on mobile
Outcomes and Results
Key Learnings
Reduced customer wait time, increase in sales by 10%
The project was launched later on in the year. Many store employees’ saw an overall improvement:
First, there was an increased awareness of storewide communications.
Second, there was a significant decrease in customer waiting times.
Third, service rates rose by 10%.
Working on this project showed me the value of empathy when designing a solution. Being involved in strategy, research and design efforts gave me a holistic view and understanding of the store employees' needs and preferred communication methods. This helped me in designing a solution, that best caters to employees' preferred communication methods of learning through the system.