eoTouch Warehouse

Context

eoTouch Warehouse is a mobile application designed to suit the needs of Warehouse users performing a variety of work such as:

• Inventory Counts
• Inventory Write-Offs, Inventory Repacks
• Receiving Purchases
• Creating Purchases
• Send/Receive Inventory Transfers
• Product Barcode Mangement

Designed as a utility application to replace a legacy windows mobile CF application in eoMobile, eoTouch Warehouse specifically targets smaller customers providing necessary warehouse capabilities without the price tag of eoWarehouse, a full fledged, multi-location, enterprise level warehouse management system.  Developed on Google’s Flutter multi-platform mobile development framework, the app is available on both iOS and Android devices.

Goals

The primary goal was to design a modern mobile application to replace the legacy eoMobile application as much of the hardware devices it ran on were beyond their working life which made it difficult for customers to replacements, let alone, even wanting to invest in outdated devices.  In doing so, particular focus was spent on reviewing all existing features and related workflows identifying relevant opportunities for improvement, especially in terms of eliminating unnecessary process steps.

My Role

Player/Coach with myself and another UX designer.  I was the UX / Product Design lead for this project.  She focused on the Receive Purchases and Create Purchases workflows under my guidance.  We designed the Home screen together, but I primarily used it as a learning opportunity for her (view HERE to see how I lead/mentor).  I was responsible for the following:

• Reviewing all existing features and flows of eoMobile, mapping each out and developing a feature inventory.
• Individual design -- Inventory Counts, Write-off Inventory, Repack Inventory, Send Transfers, Receive Transfers, Scan/Learn Barcodes
• Co-Design -- Home, Figma Design System
• Oversight -- Receive Purchases, Create Purchases
• Collaboration with users, product management leadership, executive management, and of course, software developers.

Tools

• Whiteboards
• Figma
• Azure DevOps

User Research

Existing App Review and Feature Mapping

I reviewed the existing application and mapped out all features and flows.  I also completed an entire feature inventory to ensure we had parity coverage.

Research

Given time and budget constraints, we were not afforded the opportunity to do in depth evaluative research.  Instead, we mostly focused on interviews with our Support Team, Account Management, and Product Management to better understand issues/complaints with eoMobile while also identifying 3 key customers to include in the redesign process.  We conducted initial interviews with each set of users resulting in the following:

• Too much manual searching for items.
• Counts, Write-offs, and Repacks seemed to have far too many steps, users felt there had to be ways to speed entry e.g. search and add items was a single item at a time resulting in constant back and forth navigation slowing work down.
• Inconsistency amongst similar functions across features e.g. adding items for Counts was a different workflow than that for Repacks, even though, it’s the exact same feature.Receiving purchases allowed for scanning but other features did not.
• Need for real-time syncing for the most up-to-date inventory data instead of the old style download and upload functionsPrint reports for all related features were no longer used at all, feedback corroborated from survey data from all customers.
• The Location Lookup feature was of little use, feedback corroborated from survey data.

Deliverables

• Hi fidelity annotated screens, user flows, workflows, empty states, state management, feature configuration scenarios, etc.
• General requirements and configuration matrices to ensure parity with existing feature sets
• Dev Notes and specific technical callouts and/or business logic/configuration details
• User story breakout and writeups to support development

Highlights

• Created the company’s very first design system in Figma
• Switched to a much preferred Pin based login
• Scan to search and/or add items for all features
• Single add item screen used for all features for consistency
• Also allowed for multiple items to be added at once instead of a single item at a time.
• Quick entry feature to allow advanced users to search and add multiple items at once without navigating to and from search items
• Calculator function to support counting when spot checking inventorye.g. full pallet here, 10 cases here, 3 cases over there
• Allow for syncing upon task completion to provide real-time inventory data
• Simplified the Product Barcode management feature working directly with development