CHALLENGE
Design a shipment wizard for a diverse range of clients, from one-off personal shippers to high-volume e-commerce shippers.
OUTCOME
The revised shipment flow cut manual data entry in half and clients described the dashboard as informative, consistent and smart.
ROLE & TIMELINE
Lead designer
Competitive audit, surveys, UX/UI design, user testing
Feb 2017-May 2017
Challenge
When I first began working the Chit Chats project, the business ran on a network of Google Sheets. Legacy clients would enter their shipment information in these sheets, which would then be processed by Chit Chats staff. This approach was time consuming and error-prone.
Chit Chats had a diverse range of clients, from one-off personal shippers to high-volume e-commerce shippers using channels like Shopify & Etsy. Based on initial surveys, I identified that a “one-size-fits-all” approach would not work for the revised shipment flow.
Historically, Chit Chats relied on in-branch support to guide new and one-off shippers through the intricacies of package and postage rules. This approach was not scalable for an online shipping platform.
Client UI style guides using material design
Approach
We made an early decision to target the revised shipment flow at new and low-volume users first, with a basic shipment import feature for high-volume users. Additional high-volume features would be added at a later date before mandatory transition to the new platform.
I designed a shipment wizard that guided users through the required shipment information step-by-step. A wizard design pattern was appropriate because of the amount of information required and the dependencies between package types and postage options.
Step 1 - User enters recipient information
Step 2 - User enters customs information
Step 3 - User enters package information
Step 4 - User selects postage rate
User testing session with a low-volume shipper when client UI was still work in progress
After rolling out the new shipment wizard, we turned our attention to the client dashboard. The dashboard provided an overview of shipment journeys and allowed users to perform actions on one or multiple shipments and to customize account settings. It has continously evolved and improved as we introduced new services and received client feedback.
