As part of the Supply Chain Associates' Experience team, we set out to develop a dashboard that would serve as the main touchpoint for managers, supervisors, and associates in their daily operations. This dashboard aims to provide a holistic view of ICQA responsibilities, allowing users to manage and prioritize their tasks efficiently. A crucial requirement was its ability to be customizable and adaptable to the different roles within the warehouse.
Design Overview
I created a Design Overview Deck that included the general objective, existing pain points, the vision for the solution, user personas, user journey, and design principles. Then, I shared this document with the Design Team and stakeholders. Together, we refined the wording and reached consensus on the key points.
General Objective 🎯
QA Managers need a better way to manage multiple apps and consolidate data for easier comparison and more informed decision-making in the warehouse.
What's so hard about this today? 😥
Disjointed apps: Managers juggle multiple apps, wasting time and effort.
Isolated data: Comparing data across systems is slow and prone to errors.
Manual processes: Lack of automation leads to delays and mistakes in decisions.
Vision Statement 🔭
In the future state, our new ICQA dashboard will redefine how managers and associates access and utilize essential information. This dashboard will work seamlessly on handheld devices, allowing users to analyze data on the go while moving around the warehouse. With effortless access to detailed data, users can analyze and share critical information, thereby enhancing visibility and efficiency in supply chain management. ✨
User Journey for the first time experience
Ideation
Using insights from the research phase, the ideation process involved framing "How Might We" (HMW) questions to generate creative solutions. This phase transformed research findings into actionable design concepts.
HMW facilitate data-driven decision-making by presenting accurate and up-to-date information from ICQA products in an easily digestible format?
HMW streamline workflows and improve productivity by providing quick access to essential data and tools from multiple ICQA products within a single dashboard?
HMW reduce errors and increase the accuracy of inventory and audit processes by centralizing and standardizing information from diverse ICQA systems?
HMW enhance collaboration among team members and stakeholders by offering a shared platform that supports real-time data sharing and communication?
Using the HMWs as input, I collaborated with the Product Manager to frame user stories. Additionally, I utilized ChatGPT to assist in the features ideation phase. I assessed, refined, modified, and incorporated new information, consistently applying critical thinking ✨ to evaluate outputs generated by the AI tool. I used the following prompt for this purpose:
I am working on designing a dashboard for ICQA in Walmart's Supply Chain. Here are some user stories we have developed based on our research:
[...]
Using these user stories as input, generate diverse and innovative feature ideas for the dashboard. The features should enhance usability, improve data visibility, and support the specific needs of each user role. Aim for a mix of standard and creative features, considering how technology and design can address these user needs effectively.
Feature brainstorming for the first user story
UI kit and widgets
To address the business goal of creating a customizable dashboard, I leveraged the benchmarks I collected to develop a Dashboard UI kit and a series of widgets in various sizes. These widgets are designed to meet diverse needs and can be modified and adjusted to real data later. For now, they serve as a guide and provide visual direction.
Grid system created for the customizable dashboard
Differente widget sizes
Main flows
After defining the direction for the widgets, I focused on different workflows based on the previously created User Stories.
For the first-time experience, I designed flows for creating a new dashboard, adding and rearranging widgets, saving a dashboard view, and navigating the onboarding experience.
For the after first-time experience, I created flows for editing and switching dashboard views, as well as managing multiple dashboard views.
Re-arranging widgets with drag and drop feature
The final result
The customizable supply chain dashboard for ICQA at Walmart successfully integrates user needs and business goals into a flexible and intuitive tool 🎯. By designing comprehensive workflows for both first-time and ongoing use, the dashboard enhances operational efficiency and user satisfaction. ✨
Feedback sessions and User Testing
After a couple of feedback sessions I gathered valuable insights and diverse ideas on how to enhance the proposed design. Here are some of the ideas:
Integrate information from various areas such as inbound or outbound processes. Investigate whether this information adds value to ICQA supervisors.
Explore ways to assist associates in linking chips back to widgets when creating a new dashboard view.
Explore providing everything initially and allowing them to remove what they don't need later.
- Explore creating a questionnaire instead of manually selecting desired widgets to generate a dashboard view.
After continue the divergent ideation and to ensure the dashboard meets user needs effectively, I plan to collaborate with the design researcher to conduct a series of PURE user testing sessions. These sessions will involve real users interacting with the dashboard, providing valuable insights into its usability and functionality. Based on the feedback from these sessions and input from the team, we will iterate and refine the dashboard to enhance its performance and user experience. 😉