Logistic
"Delivering seamless logistics experiences isn't just about getting from point A to point B—it's about navigating the journey with intuitive design and user-centricity at every turn."
Challenges
1. Current manual operations made business scale-up difficult
2. Human dependencies meant manual errors
3. Poor visibility for customer support team about real-time consignment status
4. Unable to control malpractices
5. Revenue loss due to leakages
6. Poor adaptability of existing system
1. Product Envisioning
2. Research & Analysis
3. Design (wire-framing & prototyping)
4. Usability Testing
Scope of Work
Timeline
Design Process
Stakeholder Questionnaire
Warm-up
1. How did the idea of this product come to you?
2. When did you start conceptualising this product?
3. How long have you been working on this product?
Business Goals
1. What needs to happen for the product to be considered as a success?
2. Which activities should users carry out on your product that is important to the success of your business?
3. What is the primary “action” the user should take while using your product?
Business Users
1. Who are the primary user groups?
2. What is their age range?
3. What is their level of mobile know-how?
Product Usage
1. Can you elaborate contextual use of the product (Role wise)?
2. Can you share some technical constraints that you can foresee? (eg. Network conditions, GPS location)
3. Please elaborate on inventory support mechanism in case of hardware failures.
User Goals
1. What motivates users from using product? (eg. automation)
2. What blocks users from using this product ?
3. What are the threats you visualise from users to the system? (Deliberate attempt to damage the device etc.)
Design Canvas
The design canvas helped us to understand how well synced the key stakeholders of an organisation are about the product, thus allowing us to stay focused & prioritize the key aspects of the product.
Business Canvas
Business canvas helped us to understand the key forces (internal & external) which are & will impact the product in long-term.
User Profiling
The user profile provides a detailed description of the user’s attributes. A user profile helped us understand who we are building products for.
User Persona
User persona helps identify relevant user segments who would be using the product. Proto persona is a fictitious depiction of the user (drawn in office), whereas actual persona is derived based on facts & findings from an on-field visit.
Field Research
Field research was the most crucial phase of the project. These field visits were conducted keeping the following key goals in mind:
1. Gather day-to-day tasks and how they are performed in the real environment
2. Identify people's need & challenges
3. Obtain relevant data like user journey/mind map, use cases, scenarios, etc.
4. See system working in relevant conditions
Mind Map
All gathered information from field research is bucketed into relevant groups based on user segment. The primary categories in which this information is grouped are:
1. The responsibilities of the corresponding team.
2. Challenges currently they are facing on day-to-day basis.
3. Expectations from the upcoming system.
4. Docs & reports that are essential for the team (present & proposed).
5. Alerts that are critical to the system shouldn’t go untapped.
6. Exceptions that are visible should be handled in the system too.
7. ROI are quantifiable parameters that communicate financial gain from an upcoming system.
Information Architecture
IA plays a very important role in creating intuitive navigation schemes by organizing, structuring, and labeling content. A good IA can help users find information easily and complete tasks efficiently.
Some of the key elements communicated through IA are:
1. Content organization: how we categorize and structure information (level-wise).
2. Labeling system: how easy it is to interpret tasks through given labels.
3. Navigation system: how easily users move through the application.
4. The search system determines how quickly users fetch the required information.
Emiza at a glance (Illustration)
Design Solutions
Problem#1 : GSPs & operations staff were afraid that automation would lead to a reduction in the job.
How have we resolved?
We spent a substantial amount of time gaining their trust that the automation was meant to improve efficiency and not replace it. In order to gain trust, we adopted an inclusive approach where designs were validated with them on a time-to-time basis.
Problem#2 : Minute tracking will mean a stoppage to the additional source of income.
How have we resolved?
Management team of Emiza was clearly aware that revenue leakages were happening due to operational malpractices & seeked solutions through our design innovation.
After a series of internal brainstorming sessions, we came up with a unique gamification engine within the application wherein GSPs can now thrive by earning points for every action they perform in the application.
Problem#3 : Errors & mistakes will be harshly dealt with.
How have we resolved?
This was the biggest fear we had to overcome through our UX & design strategy. In order to reduce & gradually eliminate manual mistakes while operating application, we decided to maintain simple & well guided flows, thus making the GSPs feel like they're in control.
Problem#4 : Plenty of calls have to be made across the warehouses.
How have we resolved?
As the existing system involved a lot of manual operations & poor information visibility across the warehouses, making calls to remain in sync was the only option.
But with the new application, this problem was eliminated by providing a smooth notification & SMS system across all the departments & warehouses.
Problem#5 :With a high probability of leaving GSPs, the Emiza team wanted to have a quick & smooth onboarding of GSPs with minimum handholding.
How have we resolved?
The quickest way to have smooth onboarding (without training) was to minimize the data entry, which meant the maximum required data should be auto-fetched from the server.
Also, we needed to make the application run in offline mode in order to ensure it's always available to the GSPs when they need it the most.
Problem#6 : Preventing operational malpractices, thus stopping revenue leakages.
How have we resolved?
GSPs & operations staff performed various operational malpractices in order to earn extra income.
We implemented the following approaches/steps:
1. Designed a checkpoint-based tracking system
2. Lock truck doors with inexpensive, durable barcode-based plastic locks.
3. Made photo-capturing a mandatory feature during loading & unloading operations at the warehouses.
Problem#7 : Tedious way to handle route planning & tracking.
How have we resolved?
Route planning is considered to be the heart of the overall system. Due to its complexity, only experienced operational & foresighted operational staff could handle this task.
Some of the parameters to be considered for this task were - consignment size, deciding the right truck size, coordinating with other warehouses on incoming trucks, long haul & last-mile deliveries, availability of GSPs across the regions etc.
We proposed the following approaches:
1. Map the system with real world workflows
2. Automating workflows and
3. Incorporating smart suggestions (using machine learning).
Business Gains
1. Digitization of manual operations has instantly improved efficiency of stakeholders & users meant better adoptability of the system.
3. Reward & recognition system encouraged all the users to use the system fearlessly.
4. A well-thought notification engine has hugely reduced unnecessary calls & information loss.
5. Real-time information in hand leads to a reduction of 70% in customer support calls.
6. Transparency of the system leads to better customer retention & satisfaction.
7. Simple yet effective locking practices reduced revenue leakages.
8. Better planning & tracking lead to better in-field resource utilisation.
9. Opened door of limitless opportunities for Emiza to scale the business & withstand fierce competition.
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Takeaways for us
1. Working on this project was definitely fun, yet quite challenging.
2. Being well versed in core user-centric design practice, helped us apply relevant tools at appropriate places.
3. Inlining stakeholders & users towards one goal was a challenging task. But various assumptions were cleared, which would have otherwise led to a debacle for Emiza in the long run.
4. Learned importance of asking the right questions to stakeholders & users.
5. Learned importance of inclusiveness among users early on can yield better adoptability of the new system.
