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IntroductionProblemResearchSolutionReflection

Introduction

In 2022, I started a seasonal job as a fulfillment associate at the Target Corporation. While there, I gradually noticed many staff were frustrated with the fulfillment process.
A few months prior, Target announced that they would be investing $5 billion in stores as same-day fulfillment was driving most of their growth. Approximately 96% of Target's sales are fulfilled by their brick-and-mortar stores.
This combination of huge growth for the business while being short on staff put extra pressure on the fulfillment team to perform.
This project aims to alleviate some of that stress and help teams function more efficiently!
Role: User Experience Designer
Team: Flex [Solo Designer]
Timeline: ~16 weeks

Problem

During the fulfillment process, the act of handing work off (from team members to team leaders) is taking a disproportionate amount of time.
How Might We....
  1  
help team members complete their work quickly and easily?
  2  
alleviate stress and reduce team member burnout?
  3  
streamline the fulfillment process so they feel confident and ready to go?

Solution

The solution we designed is a multi-step flow to send completed "batches" of items directly to team leader Zebra devices via the ePick and MyDay Target internal applications.
Key Points
1) Quick and easy: users are able to send completed batches directly to team leaders without the need of a handheld radio.
2) Alleviate stress: users are able to spend more time on what matters: picking merchandise for customers! This keeps team members in other departments free to keep doing their jobs as well; everyone wins!
3) Feel confident: users will be able to answer customer questions and spend more time picking items without being afraid of falling behind. 
so, how did we get to the solution?

Research

Thanks to my fantastic coworkers, I gathered qualitative data quickly and identified pain points felt by all employees: team members & team leaders.
Persona(s)
Timeline: Order Pickup
To better understand how time is allocated, we mapped out how time elapses during a 2-hour order pick-up:
the design!

Design Decisions

The testing of this prototype was very "scrappy." After recreating much of the Target design system myself, I used Figma mirror on my personal phone to test high-fidelity designs and gather qualitative an quantitative feedback. Based on feedback and notes from my coworkers, I iterated: 

Leader Status

Goal: send completed work to an available leader

Task-Based Status

Best

Active vs. Inactive

Fair

Pros:
-Pick available leaders
-Pick leaders based on current task
Cons:
-Team member chooses available leader
Outcome:
-Team members have solid understanding of what roles are more intense; yielded better results
Pros:
-Shows active and available leaders
Cons:
-Vague: doesn't give team member accurate idea of availability
Outcome:
-Team members made work handoff decisions based on personal rapport

Splitting Batches

Goal: efficiently send completed work to leaders for approval

Selecting Items

Best

Sending Without Selecting

Fair

Pros:
-Team member acknowledges quantity and nature of items being sent
Cons:
-Takes longer
Outcome:
-Lower number of items being sent per batch
Pros:
-Faster: one click of a button
Cons:
-Takes weight away from number of items being sent: could contribute to higher INF%, lower order accuracy
Outcome:
-Faster in the moment, slower overall
-Could derail multiple people from their current work

Notifying Leaders

Goal: send completed work to leaders and ensure they see it

Notification Across Apps &
New Category in MyDay, ePick

Best

New Category in MyDay, ePick

Fair

Pros:
-Obvious
-Provides clickable prompt across all apps
Cons:
-Could deprioritize other work in progrss
Outcome:
-Higher likelihood of leader receiving batch in timely manner
Pros:
-Make leader keep checking, continuously aware
Cons:
-Makes leader keep checking: distracts them from other tasks to be completed
Outcome:
-Lower likelihood of leader reviewing batch in timely manner

Final Solution

The solution we designed is a multi-step flow to send completed "batches" of items directly to team leader Zebra devices via the ePick and MyDay Target internal applications.
Final Notes
1) The Goal: send completed work to leaders for approval; enable store to meet all of its metrics
2) The Outcome: remove total reliance on handheld radios. Leaders decide what items should be marked as "not found" while being able to focus on other store areas!
ePick New Feature:
Team Member
MyDay New Feature
Team Leader

Reflection

This project was scrappy but gave me a chance to try solving a real-world business problem: the in-store fulfillment model.
There was a lot of jargon that I had to learn which proved to be a challenge when trying to articulate problems to other team leads.
Some key things I learned:
- Replicating a design system without documentation is pretty challenging
- Leadership always wants solutions: just ask questions!
- As with other products, facilitating and note-taking during user testing is challenging: come prepared.
- This solution would help limit a positive feedback loop: fulfillment gets overwhelmed > team members from other areas get pulled to help > those areas get overwhelmed and merchandise becomes harder to find > fulfillment gets overwhelmed.
- Other stores seem to be having similiar issues:
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