Collaborative documentation tools, along with AI expedites research and synthesis.

• Figjam

  JMiro

• Claude.ai

• ChatGPT

Challenge:
Dynamic data and technical challenges started to become real difficulties. In hindsight, we should have designed and built a couple of feature functionalities in reverse order — promotion templates, then apply promotions and discounts. That being said, stakeholders needed to discuss and discover them in a different order, not conducive to design and development.

Solution:
Isolate those two areas of data input and manipulation to different work areas to avoid data needing to be so dynamic.

Requirement:
Item-level Promotional details have multiple touch points — sometimes it’s a page (a part of the navigational structure), and sometimes it’s a flyout (appears on top of any page and not a part of the navigational structure).

Solution:
The Item-level Promotion list needs to also be in a flyout.

• Reduce clicks

• Avoid navigation

• Future-proof

• Better flow — less screen transitions

Challenge:
To view store and promotional details when servicing a customer, the user must save their work, exit, and then navigate back to resume their work. Stakeholder direction was to avoid saving and exiting, and required a seamless transition between in-progress service tickets and ALL store details, without work being lost.

Solution:
Hide the main navigation bar on any store details page IF the user navigates there from a service ticket that is in progress, and replace it with a component with a single call-to-action allowing them to bypass the navigation back stack that comes with the main navigation bar — working as an isolated “back button” specific to this workflow that allows the user to resume without an lost work.

• Primary components

  • Functional interactivity

  • Interactive states

  • Dynamic data

  • Animation

• Primary page views

• User personas and permissions

• Modals and system alerts

• Menus

• Search/Filter

• Scroll behaviors

• Error states

• Edge cases

• Interactive prototype(s)

• Micro-interactions

• Screen transitions

Challenge:
Product names can be very long, coming from a database where our team has no influence. The amount of required data input, tools, and additional access to more information for each product while servicing a store. Additionally, users are often on the move — working in their truck or walking around the store.

Solution:
Separate the types of service between two tabs, rather than choosing to deliver as well as receive a return of the same product

• Allows for maximum screen space (user setting)

• Reduce complexity (non-technical users)

• Clear separation and labeling between two very different types of transactions (reduce tech support)

Challenge:
Servicing a store takes time — walking around the store, communicating with multiple store employees, manual labor, trips out to the trucks, etc. Distributors also lacked real-time insight into their inventory and sales metrics.

Solution:
A drawer that can open and close over the top of any page gives the user access to the entire application and allows them to move their work out of the way, if needed, and pick up at any moment. Additionally, data in the summary drawer is dynamic, so the user can be confident that their bottom-line profits are accurate at that moment, regardless of selling more, returning more, adjusting their virtual inventory quantities, and applying promotions.

• Real-time insight into sales metrics, inventory, and store performance (profitability)

• Open-ended workflow and research (user setting)

• Minimized navigation (non-technical users)

• Real-time data summary (user adoption)

Challenge:
The interface started becoming more and more busy, as features were added, making the experience on smaller devices such as phones (10% of the user base).

Solution:
Design spent a full sprint on “mobile optimization” — drastically improving the experience on smaller devices, as well as adding some improvements across all device experiences.

• Hide main navigation on scroll, show on immediate reverse scroll (user feedback)

• Responsive table body cells (user feedback)

• Refactored summary drawer (user feedback)

• Button Group component (user feedback)

Challenge:
There is a separate part of the application (outside of Retail Management) that displays promotions on the user’s weekly distribution calendar, where color is used in very specific ways, revolving around schedule and time.

Solution:
When the user is servicing a store using the STAR Route Management feature set, those same colors are used to connect those work streams — Route Execution and Route Management.

Challenge:
Dynamic data and technical challenges became a problem when initially attempting to allow for manual price editing alongside promotion management.

Solution:
Iteration was required — isolating those two areas of data input and manipulation to different work areas to avoid data needing to be so dynamic.