BUSINESS ANALYSIS & UI DESIGN
With nearly 50 years of legacy, BlueHarvest is a nationwide grocery distributor headquartered on the east coast whose primary knowledge areas are logistics and supply chain management. In 2021, they named a new CEO who began a lofty transformation vision which included improving digital offerings.
Their strengths lie in their one-on-one customer service, through both their account managers and customer service representatives. They have a number of complex challenges including a lack of a communicated product strategy, disparate acquired systems, absence of competitor understanding in a very niche market, nonexistent user research or customer understanding, and – most impactful – siloed knowledge with no assigned product lead.
*Name changed and product white-labeled for client confidentiality.
This includes support for estimated truck delivery times, current delivery progress, and customer service access.
Invoices and claims are directly related to the delivery step in the customer experience, so our team was tasked with adding these features to the existing delivery tracker product. Traditionally, invoices were only accessible on BlueHarvest’s web application, which required a unique login ID and a desktop computer, typically reserved for store managers. Those who worked in receiving and ordering would not see the invoice until the truck arrived with a printed version attached.
If BlueHarvest can alert customers immediately to which items aren’t fulfilled, customers have more time to reorder, reducing the risk of losing business to competitors.
The claims process, where customers report issues with their order, is also one of BlueHarvest's biggest headaches. It becomes more expensive to prove the issue when a claim is over a week old, so the company prefers for claims to be filed immediately.
DEFINED FEATURE OBJECTIVE
Stakeholders determined business success could be measured through adoption (the number of store accounts using the app) and desirability (the number of user sessions conducted). The expected release date was within two months.
We faced challenges in finding users due to outreach restrictions and potential negative reactions to change, with limited and biased feedback from forms. Lacking a budget for a sourcing company, we navigated the niche industry's complexities and risked user assumptions. However, insights from internal teams—account managers and customer service reps—helped refine our user focus to two groups, representing both large and small accounts.
Goal: Identify potential claims to be submitted so the store receives their desired products.
responsibilities
Motivators
Goal: Identify items to replace / re-order so their store can be stocked.
Pain points
Motivators
Due to knowledge gaps within the team, I took on both UX and analyst roles, identifying technical blockers and proposing revisions to support the UI. I led efforts to bridge knowledge gaps between teams and facilitated collaboration across stakeholders, design, and engineering. Additionally, I managed tickets, created Confluence documentation, and provided demos and Jira links.
BlueHarvest had acquired many companies and systems over the past 15 years. Because of a lack of a central data lake, we had to account for two different host systems (or data sets), named “Legacy” and “Horizon”, and provide a uniform experience for each.
Thankfully, we did have the benefit of leaning on the existing Web app for reference. It already supported invoices and was forming customers’ expectations of how the system should behave and which patterns should be used.
After speaking with account managers and customer service representatives, then further peppering the tech leads of the Web team with questions, we were able to start forming a foundation for the mobile invoice experience.
Most importantly, we knew that some invoices could have hundreds of items which could become overwhelming on a small screen, so the mobile experience would need to be intentionally unique to tailor to a Mobile user.
RECOMMENDATION
In the web app, the latest invoice is at the top, meaning that invoice sorting descends by date.
Mobile can also make invoice sorting descend by date.
Web has “no rhyme or reason” to sorting within invoices.
Items in printed invoice spreadsheets are listed alphabetically.
Recommended alphabetical item listing for invoices in BlueDistribute.
Sorting and searching functionalities are not available on the web.
Account managers said that “customers will print invoices by department.” The web team confirmed that this is the most-requested sorting they hear.
Strongly advocated for adding a search functionality.
We could provide sorting by brands and department for Horizon, but the data of the Legacy host system was unable to accommodate that.
Horizon’s invoice number would require 3 additional digits than Legacy’s.
research findings
Mobile can provide enough space to accommodate the maximum amount of digits.
Our conversations with account managers revealed that prices and discount codes are relevant to the ordering process and to users whose roles include billing/finance.
Since our primary goal is to surface items that did not come on the order, and ordering new items is performed in another product, we made the choice to omit item prices in the mobile app.
Account managers reported that the item name, UPC code, item code, amount shipped, and amount ordered were sufficient details for a user to easily identify the item.
These 5 pieces of data are available in each host system.
We could find a way to incorporate these 5 pieces of data for each item without overwhelming the interface.
Account managers hear from customers that they would like to see product images for faster scanning.
Work was ongoing to build a product image library.
We could future-proof the product by making room for images now, which could be hidden until the library was ready.
When an invoice had missing items, label with "# not shipped" would be added under the total number of items. This would direct a user to go into the invoice and investigate what was unfulfilled.
If the number of units included on the shipment was less than the amount ordered, we included logic to sort the item into a “Not Shipped” category, displayed in a tab format. This provided flexibility to display items that were shorted as well as items that weren’t included on the order at all.
I worked with developers to create API calls to fetch each host system's data on the item name, UPC code, item code, amount shipped, and amount ordered so we could accurately populate them in the interface.
Further, our learnings allowed us to expand on the initial business ask. The next step after identifying unfulfilled or shorted items would be to file a claim or make a new order. Even though these functions could not be built natively, we included external links to the web app’s mobile-responsive claims workflow and to the ordering mobile application.
“I really appreciate what you have brought to the team. The designs you have delivered are well-thought-out and high quality.”
– Product owner, BlueDistribute
Our business goals of adoption and increased user sessions were met tremendously.
It's possible to navigate uncertainties and make informed decisions even if we don’t have all the details.
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