Peapod Digital Labs -Monthly Feedback Sessions
Background
Peapod Digital Labs is redesigning the order management and picking tools the store associates use to fulfill pickup orders.
Study Goals
Collaboratively design the new order management and fulfillment systems with the associates who are the expert users of the current systems, and who will be using these systems every day.
Collect initial feedback on our new designs each month until the design is complete (Dec 2020 - June 2021).
Original Order Management Design
Research Methods
Monthly 1:1 moderated remote sessions through Microsoft Teams.
Concept testing through screen sharing (send a prototype to the associate, they interacted on their own while sharing their screen)
Tried to conduct sessions through UserZoom’s moderated tool, but the stores’ firewalls blocked sites of this nature.
Work Partners
UX designers
UX design manager
Back-end and front-end engineers
Product managers (from Business Systems and Fulfillment teams)
My Role
Established relationships with the brands and associates to be able to set up these sessions
Worked with the team to identify discussion topics for each round of testing
Developed the discussion guides with the team for each round of testing
Scheduled and managed associates during recruitment
Moderated sessions for each round of testing
Lead analysis and synthesis with the help of the team
Created and shared the documented findings for each round of testing
Monthly Participants
Grocery Brand 1: Stop & Shop
1 Field Specialist (managed the rollout and training of all pickup operations throughout the brand)
2 Customer Service Managers (managed associate training within the pickup service at the store level)
Grocery Brand 2: The Giant Company
3 District Coordinators (managed daily operations of the pickup service in all stores within their district)
Used the same participants each month because it was a difficult and time consuming process to get access to store associates, so we didn’t want to have to spend time recruiting new participants each time we needed feedback.
Key Research Questions
[Changed each month, below is an example]
In this new design, how easy or difficult is it for associates to accomplish the following tasks:
Out-of-stock an item
Pick a substitute
View individually picked weighted items
Repick an item in the handheld
Reset, abandon, and print labels for batches
Combine and split batches
Redesigned Batch Management Iteration
Key Findings
[Full findings can be provided upon request, below is an example]
Repicking is a completely new handheld process, which all associates found useful, but some struggled to immediately understand the different ways to repick items.
Everyone found the reset option quickly, thought this new feature worked as expected, and thought it would be useful to quickly edit picks in the moment.
Some were slow to understand that the “Sub” button allowed for manual editing without resetting the entire item.
Once these options were explored, associates understood the value for each and appreciated the flexibility in repicking.
Reprinting batch labels, resetting a batch, and abandoning a batch were effortless and worked as expected.
Everyone easily found either the “I Want To” action button or the 3 dots menu to complete these tasks.
Many associates appreciated the addition of showing pick rate for each batch in the desktop because shoppers often ask how they’re performing.
No associates found the combine batches feature in the desktop tool valuable and were concerned it would unnecessarily waste expensive labels.
Shoppers are already able to combine batches using the handheld, which allows them to scan 2 sets of labels into the picking tool.
Associates felt that this process works well today and works better than the desktop implementation because there is no need for a new set of labels to be printed.
Splitting batches was seen as a nice addition to the desktop application, but few immediately knew how it worked.
Few knew to select individual labels to create a new batch, but since this is a completely new feature, this can be learned over time.
For split batches, associates weren't sure whether only the new batch labels would print or whether all batch labels would print, including those for the initial batch.
I.e., Would only batch X print, or would both batch X and batch Y print?
Impact
[Full list of instances of impact can be shared upon request]
After 2 months from initial launch, we achieved a 16% increase in shopping productivity.
Pilot stores are outperforming in the following ways:
Brand average for out-of-stock items
Percent of out-of-stock items substituted
Order completeness
In terms of the engagement overall, I created relationships and working processes to conduct feedback sessions with associates for the first time at the company.
Each month, I helped to:
Document associate usage of their current tools to influence our redesign.
Change the visual treatment of substitution items.
Add reason codes when issuing a credit.
Remove the Combine Batches feature.
Give praise to the design and product management teams on the ease of use of the new handheld picking designs.