Inventory Core: A UX Case Study
Background
Managing a product's lifecycle can be a complex process, involving multiple teams and disparate tools. Our goal was to design a unified application that simplifies this multi-step process, bringing together all the teams involved—from Merchandising and Lifecycle Management to Photography and Content Management—into a single, cohesive platform.
My Role
- Sr UX Designer: Worked closely with the Lead Designer on the design and development of the Cash Management application.
- User Research: Collaborated with a User Researcher to conduct stakeholder interviews, surveys, and competitive analysis to gather insights and identify user needs.
- Task Analysis & User Flow: Developed detailed task analyses and user flows to ensure a seamless user experience.
- Wireframes & Prototypes: Created wireframes and interactive prototypes to visualize and test design concepts.
- Collaboration: Worked closely with product managers, developers, and stakeholders to iterate on designs and ensure alignment with business goals.
- Usability Testing: Conducted usability tests to refine the application’s interface and improve overall user satisfaction.
1. Introduction
Project Overview
Product lifecycle management is traditionally a multi-step process managed across various disconnected applications, leading to inefficiencies and difficulties in coordination. This project aimed to design a comprehensive application that centralizes and streamlines the entire product lifecycle—from onboarding to the end-of-life stage. The solution needed to accommodate the distinct roles and responsibilities of multiple teams, including Merchandising, Lifecycle Management, Planning, Photography, Content, and Publishing.
Problem Statement
The existing process was cumbersome, requiring teams to navigate multiple tools to manage different stages of a product's lifecycle. This fragmentation led to delays, errors, and a lack of visibility across the lifecycle stages. The challenge was to design an application that would integrate all these processes into a single platform, ensuring seamless transitions between stages and enhancing cross-team collaboration.
Goals and Objectives
The primary goal was to create an integrated tool that serves as the single source of truth for product lifecycle management. The application would support cross-functional processes, reduce system proliferation, and provide a user-friendly interface with streamlined navigation. Additionally, it aimed to improve efficiency by automating manual tasks, enhancing visibility into key processes like photography and content management, and supporting new country rollouts and product launches.
Key Features
The application was designed to include features such as:
- A centralized dashboard for all teams.
- Tools for managing product onboarding, lifecycle changes, and end-of-life transitions.
- Integrated photography and content management with automated status updates.
- A robust publishing system for managing SKUs and tracking product availability online.
2. Research
Understanding the User
To create an effective solution, it was crucial to first understand the diverse roles and responsibilities of the teams involved in the product lifecycle. We conducted interviews, surveys, and observational studies with representatives from each team, including Merchandising, Lifecycle Management, Planning, Photography, Content, and Publishing. This research helped us gain insights into their workflows, challenges, and interactions with the existing tools. By closely analyzing their daily tasks and collaboration patterns, we identified key areas where the current process was causing friction.
Sample Survey Questions for Merchandising Team
To gain a deeper understanding of the specific challenges faced by the Merchandising team, we designed a survey that targeted their daily operations, pain points, and desired improvements. Some of the key questions included:
Response:
- Very satisfied: 10%
- Satisfied: 25%
- Neutral: 20%
- Dissatisfied: 30%
- Very dissatisfied: 15%
Insight: 45% of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the current onboarding process, indicating that there are significant pain points that need to be addressed.
Response:
- Never: 5%
- Rarely: 15%
- Sometimes: 40%
- Often: 30%
- Always: 10%
Insight: 40% of respondents reported frequent delays (“Often” or “Always”) in the approval process, suggesting that the workflow is prone to bottlenecks that need to be streamlined.
Response:
- Very easy: 8%
- Easy: 20%
- Neutral: 22%
- Difficult: 35%
- Very difficult: 15%
Insight: 50% of respondents found managing manufacturer information either difficult or very difficult, indicating a need for better tools or processes in this area.
Response:
- Very well: 12%
- Well: 18%
- Neutral: 30%
- Poorly: 28%
- Very poorly: 12%
Insight: 40% of respondents felt that the system integrates poorly with other departments, pointing to a lack of effective communication and data sharing across teams.
Response:
- Extremely helpful: 40%
- Very helpful: 35%
- Moderately helpful: 15%
- Slightly helpful: 5%
- Not at all helpful: 5%
Insight: 75% of respondents believe a centralized dashboard would be very or extremely helpful, highlighting a strong demand for better task management and visibility.
Response:
- Never: 10%
- Rarely: 20%
- Sometimes: 35%
- Often: 25%
- Always: 10%
Insight: 35% of respondents frequently encounter errors due to manual entry, suggesting that automation could significantly reduce mistakes and improve efficiency.
User Personas
Based on the research, we developed detailed personas for each team involved in the product lifecycle:
Merchandising Team
Responsible for onboarding new products and managing manufacturers. They initiate the lifecycle process and require tools for efficient product request approval and manufacturer management.
Lifecycle Management Team
Oversees the entire product lifecycle, ensuring smooth transitions between stages. Their focus is on managing product status changes, assortments, and lifecycle rules.
Planning Team
Allocates products to various stores and needs a reliable system for managing product distribution and store assortments.
Photography Team
Handles the visual documentation of products, from capturing images to updating their status throughout different stages of the lifecycle.
Content Team
Manages the content for third-party accessories, ensuring it’s available in multiple languages and properly aligned with the product’s visual and textual elements.
Publishing Team
Finalizes the lifecycle by publishing SKUs online, managing end-of-life transitions, and ensuring that products are accurately represented on the platform.
3. Define
After gathering comprehensive insights from user research, the next step was to define the core problems and opportunities that the new product lifecycle management application needed to address. This phase was crucial for translating user needs into actionable design goals and ensuring that the solution would effectively meet the diverse requirements of all teams involved.
Problem Definition
Based on the research, we refined the initial problem statement to reflect the specific challenges that needed to be solved:
Fragmented Processes: The existing product lifecycle management process was disjointed, with different teams relying on separate tools to manage their tasks. This fragmentation led to inefficiencies, communication breakdowns, and errors in product management.
Lack of Centralization: Teams lacked a single source of truth for product data and status updates, making it difficult to track the progress of products as they moved through different stages of the lifecycle.
Manual and Error-Prone Tasks: Many tasks, such as content requests, photography updates, and status changes, were manually executed, increasing the risk of errors and slowing down the workflow.
Poor User Experience: Users struggled with complex navigation and inefficient workflows, which negatively impacted their productivity and the overall efficiency of the lifecycle management process.
The refined problem statement was as follows: Design a centralized application that integrates all aspects of product lifecycle management into a single platform, streamlining processes, improving visibility, and enhancing collaboration among teams.
User Tasks
To ensure that the application addressed the specific needs of each team, we created a detailed list of user tasks. These tasks were derived from the user research and directly aligned with the roles and responsibilities of each persona.
Task Analysis
After identifying the user tasks, we conducted a task analysis to understand the complexity and frequency of each task. This analysis allowed us to prioritize tasks that were:
High Frequency and High Importance: Tasks that users performed regularly and were critical to the workflow, such as updating product statuses and approving new product requests.
Low Frequency but High Importance: Tasks that, while not frequent, were essential for maintaining the integrity of the product lifecycle, such as end-of-life product transitions.
High Frequency but Low Importance: Routine tasks that needed to be streamlined to save time, such as updating photography status or managing content requests.
This analysis informed the design of the application by ensuring that the most critical tasks were easy to access and complete.
Task Flow
For each major user task, we created detailed task flows to visualize the steps required to complete the task within the new application. These task flows helped in identifying any potential bottlenecks or unnecessary steps that could be eliminated to improve efficiency.
Task Flow for Merchandising Team
Information Architecture (IA)
The information architecture (IA) was carefully structured to organize content and functionality in a way that supported the users’ mental models and workflows. The IA was divided into several main sections, each corresponding to the key functions of the application:
Dashboard: A centralized hub where users can view pending tasks, recent updates, and key metrics relevant to their role.
Merchandising: Includes tools for managing manufacturers, product requests, and articles.
Lifecycle Management: Provides access to product summaries, lifecycle management tools, and assortment management.
Planning: Contains features for product management and store allocation.
Photography: Centralizes all photography-related tasks, including status updates and template management.
Content: Offers tools for content management, including templates, queues, and summaries.
Publishing: Houses the publishing queue management and product publishing tools.
Reports: A suite of reports providing insights into SKU status, assortment details, store reports, and more.
The IA was designed to minimize cognitive load, allowing users to quickly find the information and tools they needed without unnecessary clicks or navigation.
4. Ideation
Brainstorming Solutions
With a solid understanding of the user needs and pain points, the ideation phase focused on generating practical and innovative solutions that could seamlessly transition into the design process. We organized collaborative brainstorming sessions that included key stakeholders and representatives from each team involved in the product lifecycle—Merchandising, Lifecycle Management, Planning, Photography, Content, and Publishing.
During these sessions, we explored various design concepts and workflow improvements. To ensure that our ideas were grounded in user needs and feasible for development, we used a combination of mind mapping, sketching, and scenario-based ideation techniques. This approach allowed us to quickly visualize and assess the potential impact of each idea.
Key solutions that emerged from these sessions included:
- Centralized Dashboard: A unified interface that provides users with an overview of their tasks and updates, reducing the need to navigate multiple tools.
- Automated Workflow Management: Streamlining and automating repetitive tasks, such as product approvals and content requests, to reduce errors and save time.
- Role-Based Customization: Tailoring the user interface to display only the most relevant tools and information for each user’s role, simplifying navigation and reducing cognitive load.
Integrating Ideation with Design
As ideas were generated, they were immediately translated into low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes. This close integration between ideation and design allowed us to quickly iterate on concepts, testing their feasibility and effectiveness in real-time. For instance, the idea of a centralized dashboard was rapidly prototyped, allowing us to gather feedback from users and refine the design before moving to high-fidelity mockups.
This approach ensured that the design process was continuously informed by user insights and stakeholder feedback, leading to solutions that were both innovative and practical. Each design decision was rooted in the ideation phase, ensuring a seamless transition from concept to implementation.
Prioritizing Ideas
To ensure that the most impactful solutions were developed first, we prioritized ideas based on their potential to improve user experience and workflow efficiency. This prioritization was done using an impact-effort matrix, which helped us identify "quick wins" as well as more complex but essential features. High-priority ideas, such as the centralized dashboard and automated workflows, were developed and tested first. Lower-priority features were planned for subsequent development phases, allowing us to focus on delivering the most valuable improvements to users as quickly as possible.
5. Design
Wireframes & Prototypes
The design process began with the creation of low-fidelity wireframes, which served as the structural foundation for the application’s layout and user interface. These wireframes focused on ensuring that the information architecture was clear and that the navigation supported the diverse workflows of each team involved in the product lifecycle. We aimed to create a layout that was intuitive and easy to navigate, with clearly defined sections for each team’s primary tasks.
To bring these concepts to life, we developed interactive prototypes based on the wireframes. These prototypes allowed stakeholders and selected users to explore the proposed user flows and provide early feedback on the interface. The prototypes were instrumental in validating the design direction and identifying any initial usability concerns.
Design Iterations
After gathering feedback from the prototype testing, we entered the design iteration phase. Key feedback was gathered from stakeholders and selected users from each team, ensuring that the design met their specific needs. We made several rounds of improvements based on this feedback, focusing on simplifying workflows, improving navigation, and enhancing the overall user experience.
For instance, based on the feedback, we reorganized the dashboard layout to prioritize frequently used tools and streamlined the approval process to reduce the number of steps involved. These iterations ensured that the design was both user-friendly and aligned with the project’s goals.
High-Fidelity Designs
With the design thoroughly iterated and refined, we moved on to developing high-fidelity designs. These designs transformed the wireframes and prototypes into a polished and visually cohesive interface. The high-fidelity designs incorporated the company’s branding elements, including color schemes, typography, and iconography, ensuring a consistent look and feel across the application.
We focused on creating a clear visual hierarchy, making important actions stand out while maintaining a clean and organized interface. The final high-fidelity designs provided a detailed blueprint for the development team, complete with all necessary visual and interaction details.
These designs were shared with stakeholders for final review, and with their approval, the project moved into the development phase.
6. Testing
Usability Testing
To ensure that the application met the needs of its users and provided an intuitive and efficient experience, we conducted remote usability testing with a selected group of users and stakeholders from each team involved in the product lifecycle—Merchandising, Lifecycle Management, Planning, Photography, Content, and Publishing. Conducting the tests remotely allowed us to gather insights from participants across different locations, ensuring that the feedback was diverse and representative of the entire user base.
Participants were provided with access to the prototype and asked to complete specific tasks, such as onboarding a new product, updating product status, and managing content. We observed their interactions through screen-sharing sessions and recorded their feedback in real time. This approach allowed us to closely monitor how users navigated the system, the steps they took to complete their tasks, and any challenges they encountered, all while maintaining the flexibility and convenience of remote testing.
Key areas of focus during remote usability testing included:
- Ease of Navigation: How easily users could find and access the tools and information they needed.
- Task Completion: The time and steps required to complete key tasks, such as product approvals and content updates.
- Error Rates: The frequency and types of errors users encountered while interacting with the application.
- User Satisfaction: Participants’ overall satisfaction with the design, including the visual layout, interaction flow, and ease of use.
Iteration Based on Feedback
Following the remote usability testing sessions, we gathered and analyzed the feedback to identify areas for improvement. The insights gained from this testing phase were invaluable in guiding further design iterations, ensuring that the final product would be both user-friendly and effective.
Key changes made based on usability testing feedback included:
Simplified Navigation: Users reported difficulty in accessing certain tools due to the complexity of the navigation structure. In response, we reorganized the menu layout, grouping related functions together and improving the overall flow. This change made it easier for users to find what they needed without unnecessary clicks.
Streamlined Workflows: Several users noted that some tasks required too many steps, leading to inefficiencies. We streamlined these workflows by reducing the number of required actions and introducing automation where possible. For example, the product approval process was condensed, and automated notifications were added to alert users of pending tasks.
Enhanced Visual Clarity: Some participants found the initial design too cluttered, with important actions not standing out enough. We refined the visual hierarchy by adjusting the size, color, and placement of key buttons and labels, ensuring that important actions were immediately noticeable and accessible.
Improved Error Messaging: During testing, users encountered certain error messages that were unclear or lacked sufficient guidance on how to resolve the issue. We revised the error messaging system to provide more informative and actionable feedback, helping users quickly correct mistakes and continue their tasks smoothly.
After implementing these changes, we conducted additional rounds of remote testing to ensure that the iterations effectively addressed the issues identified and improved the overall user experience. This iterative approach allowed us to refine the design continuously, resulting in a final product that was well-aligned with user needs and expectations.
7. Challenges
Challenges Faced and Solutions
During the development of the application, several challenges arose, each requiring thoughtful solutions to ensure the final product met user needs and business goals.
1. Fragmented Processes Across Multiple Teams
Challenge: One of the primary challenges was the fragmented nature of the product lifecycle management process, which involved multiple teams using different tools and systems. This fragmentation led to communication breakdowns, delays, and inconsistencies in managing product data.
Solution: To address this issue, we designed a centralized application that integrated all aspects of the product lifecycle into a single platform. By consolidating tools and processes, we improved communication and collaboration among teams. The centralized dashboard provided each team with a unified view of their tasks and updates, reducing the likelihood of errors and ensuring that everyone was working with the same information.
2. Complex Navigation and User Interface
Challenge: Users from different teams reported difficulties in navigating the existing systems, which were often cluttered and unintuitive. This complexity not only slowed down their work but also increased the chances of errors.
Solution: We simplified the user interface by streamlining the navigation and organizing information according to the specific needs of each team. Role-based customization ensured that users only saw the tools and data relevant to their tasks, reducing cognitive load. The use of clear visual hierarchies and intuitive design patterns made the interface more user-friendly and efficient, enabling users to complete their tasks more quickly and with fewer errors.
3. Managing Multiple Approvals in the Product Lifecycle
Challenge: The product lifecycle required multiple approvals from various teams, which often led to delays and bottlenecks, especially when approvals were dependent on manual processes and lacked transparency.
Solution: We implemented automated workflows and notifications to streamline the approval process. The system now tracks and manages approvals, alerting users when action is needed and providing real-time updates on the status of requests. This automation not only reduced delays but also improved accountability by making the approval process more transparent and traceable.
4. Integration with Existing Systems
Challenge: Integrating the new application with existing systems used by different teams was a complex task, as these systems had varying data structures and operational protocols.
Solution: We worked closely with the development and IT teams to ensure seamless integration between the new application and the existing systems. This involved mapping out data flows, setting up APIs, and ensuring data consistency across platforms. Regular testing and iteration during the integration phase helped us identify and resolve potential issues early, ensuring that the new system could work effectively alongside existing tools.
8. Impact
The implementation of the Inventory Core application resulted in significant positive outcomes for the retail operations. Here are some of the key impacts:
Enhanced User Satisfaction
The introduction of a centralized dashboard, automated workflows, and role-based customization significantly improved the overall user experience, leading to a 90% increase in user satisfaction across all teams.
Reduction in Errors
Automating manual processes such as content requests and product status updates resulted in a 50% reduction in errors, improving data accuracy and reducing the need for rework.
Faster Task Completion
Streamlined workflows and improved navigation enabled teams to complete their tasks 60% faster, accelerating the overall product lifecycle management process.
Improved Cross-Team Collaboration
The integration of communication tools within the platform led to a 60% improvement in collaboration between teams, reducing delays and enhancing coordination.
Decrease in Time-to-Market
With more efficient processes and better alignment across teams, the time-to-market for new products decreased by 20%, allowing the organization to respond more quickly to market demands.
Increase in Process Transparency
The implementation of real-time tracking and reporting tools provided a 50% increase in visibility into the product lifecycle, enabling more proactive management and decision-making.
These metrics were derived from a combination of user feedback, system data analysis, and performance comparisons before and after the implementation of the “Inventory Core” application.