Customer order picking within the DFCs were managed by Outbound Supervisors using a refreshable spreadsheet. The spreadsheet tools were not built with any security and posed security risks for the organization.

Along with this, there was no consistency in the process followed by supervisors across different buildings or even within the same building and the tools did not provide the users visibility to critical information to make effective decisions.

Contextual Inquiry helped us understand the mental-model of the Supervisors and the various touch-points that exist in their job of managing customer orders.

The goal was to replace the existing spreadsheet-based tool with a cloud-based application that allowed users to carry out the same tasks with equal or better efficiency. No new features or process improvements was within the purview of the MVP.

Due to various priorities, the team had a 3 months deadline to deliver the new solution. To make the best use of time, I ran a week-long design sprint at a Home Depot Fulfillment Center. The sprint included a developer from the team, the business owner and two users from different Fulfillment centers.

During the first couple of days of the sprint, I facilitated various activities to familiarize ourselves with the process, the people, their behaviors and the problems they face.

Some of the key findings from our research were:

From the research learnings, I created a user-persona to consolidate the users’ needs, goals, process, pain-points, and behaviors.

The ideation process began with card-sorting. The goal was to identify what information within the Excel tool that the supervisors were using was important for them to be successful and the order in which they prioritized that information. This was done by first identifying the key pieces of informaton and having the supervisors stack rank and categorize them.

I facilitated a whiteboarding exercise with the team to explore ideas to solve for the prioritized goals and user needs. During the process, I tried to keep the conversations focused on the MVP and created a parking lot with a list of Nice-to-Haves.

The Design Studio gave me a skeletal idea of the solution and I created digital wireframes to address the top user needs and goals.

We conducted a series of usability studies over the next couple of weeks to test our solution hypothesis and iterated based on the learnings.

From the study, we learned that users cared more about specific research and not open-ended research as we initially believed. Based on this, I iterated on the designs to match their mental model more closely. The outcome was that users were able to take actions more easily and there was less ambiguity in what they could interact with and what they couldn’t.

The outcomes of this effort were:

The efficiency of the Supervisors and their decisions directly impacts The Home Depot's online shopping experience and the tools they use directly impacts the building's efficiency. As a result, it was very important for us to make sure we provide the Supervisors with a tool that makes them feel confident using while improving their efficiency and security.

When we tested the final version of the app, the users felt comfortable and confident using the new app. They were able to run the operations smoothly with very little to no training needed and this was a huge win for us.

Some aspects of the project, like the remote usability studies, could've gone better. Nonetheless, these issues were minor and didn't derail the project. I managed to stay focused on the MVP and included all stakeholders in the entire design process which made this project a successful endeavor.

Working on this project gave me a lot of confidence in runnings design sprints and making big design decisions.