Home Depot User Experience Design
Summer 2017 Intern
Project Description: As a User Experience Intern, I worked on a team to redesign an interface for the Multis Packing Station in Home Depot's Direct Fulfillment Centers. I worked alongside software engineers and a product manager in an agile process to efficiently design, build, and test a solution for the users through several iterations.
Key Takeaways:
The importance of understanding the user's environment to better understand any pain points.
The impact of working with a team in an agile process to create the best solutions.
Usability Testing can shape our design decisions and lead to successful designs.
The Process
User Research
Our initial research included user interviews, observation of the packing process and completing the packing process ourselves. We then discussed our observations and determined the pain points involved in the packing process. We prioritized the pain points based on which points were the greatest user pains and business pains. Our top pain points were the flow was not well defined, there were long load times, multiple peripherals, and lots of back and forth movement for the user.
Goals from Research
We created goals based on our research. Our goals were to improve average units per hour by reducing user movement, reduce risk of errors by creating a cleaner and clearer interface, lower cost and increase productivity by reducing training time, maintain more consistency by creating a streamlined flow, design for flexibility by providing access to all information.
Design and Development
We continued to develop ideas as we worked through a 'Discovery and Framing' process. Through design studios and design critiques, everyone on the team contributed design ideation to create each version of the prototype. I used Sketch and InVision to create mockups to give the developers clear visuals. This process involved several iterations before creating the first live code prototype for usability testing.
First Prototype and Usability Testing
We tested our design at a distribution center with our users. We gained feedback from observing the users go through the process with the new design. This feedback influenced our design as we moved forward.
Further Development
Our team continued to create iterations of the design through design studios and critiques. Based on our feedback from the usability testing, we needed to create an interface that showed the user more information at one time. We decided to adjust our design to fit vertically on the screen. As the user completes each step, a visual confirmation is given.
Second Prototype and Usability Testing
After creating a new prototype, we were able to conduct more usability testing at the distribution center. We received positive feedback from the users and managers on the new design. At the end of the internship, the project was passed along for further development.
Business Impact: This design reduces training time from 5 weeks to 2 weeks and lowers training costs by about $1.5 million per year. It lowers development costs and creates faster changes. It improves consistency which builds customer loyalty.
"They will appreciate it more because it's more hands on - you can actually visualize what you are doing."
-Pack Station Supervisor