Connected Associates
Project Details
Tool: Sketch, Figma
Date: 2020 - Present
Category: UX / UI, System framework
Company Sam's Club
As the lead designer on the Connected Associates project at Sam's Club, I work with UX researchers, communication designers, product managers, engineers, operation/business representatives, and industrial design agency to develop a solution from both software and hardware perspectives.
The initiative aims to connect all associates within Sam's Club with a device that eliminates walkie-talkie chatter,
allows them to have targeted communication in private channels. In addition to that, associates are able to access features such as Ask Sam (Chatbot) and Notifications.
Research into the problem
Collaborate with UX researchers and the hardware device design agency. We conduct observation sessions and interviews to our in-store associates. The problem can be categorized into the following 2 points:
1. Accessibility to devices:
- Internal communication
With no access to internal radio conversations. Associates with no walkie-talkie (radio) device despatched are hard to be located or reached out to. - Receiving notifications:
Hard to get informed in time to assist members (customers) or be aware of an emergency situation. Associates using shared devices also getting irrelevant information. - Searching, looking up for information
Associates have no proper tools to complete their tasks or to help customers. For example, associates are forced to use the customer-facing app to check inventory. Less than 100% hand-held device availability leads to negative behaviors of device hoarding, hiding.
2. Poor communication experience:
By conducting a walkie-talkie device journey map, we pinned the pain points for our users with their current communication experience.
Define the Goal
Next, we look into different needs for our associates in different roles, and discuss our success KPI with the Product team. The experience framework help us to ensure the design direction we are creating is matching to our project goal:
Empower associates to communicate with each other through an intuitive multimodal interface. In turn, facilitate more functionality, collect valuable usage data, and increase associate satisfaction.
Design the Resolution
Resolving the needs from the following 3 perspectives:
- Communication design - Integrating with voice assistant
Integrate with existing chatbot product and refine it into a voice assistant. Empower user to have a hands-free experience or enjoy a voice + GUI multi-modality design. Allow user to start any actions (ask a question or talk to an associate) with voice commands. - Digital Design with targeted communication
Improve the current walkie-talkie experience to reduce irrelevant chatter and noise. Turn the radio functionality into a digital experience to enable individual and group communication channels. - Industrial design to improve device accessibility and wearability
Communication device must function for staff of all ages and in a variety of environments. Explore a device option that provides better coverage, flexibility, trust under the existing physical limitation.
NOTE: Check my other project, which I also lead to improve the targeted notification experience
Concept storyboard
These storyboards are used to convey the concept of the product to our stakeholders. Also, this is an efficient way to introduce the product to club associates when we visit Sam's Clubs for UX testing.
Slides
Case study: 1 to 1 communication
Reminder: Turn on sound to watch the video
To reduce irrelevant chatter and noise, instead of always talking to all associates on the walkie-talkie, let associates be able to have private 1:1 communication channels with other associates.
Integrating with voice assistant, mimicking associates current experience. Users can give a voice command to the system to connect to another associate. For example, give commands like "Talk to Jerry"
Testing
Below showing the design updates based on the pre-launching tests. We visited some clubs near by and bringing device prototypes to the associates and asking to complete some usecases with sample dialogs.
Communication Channel Framework
Future vision: Functionality as shared service
While developing the current MVP version, we also look into the possible futrue of the communication functionality. Instead of being an independent app, the feature can be intergrated into existing associate apps and other devices as a shared function.
The shared serve should have easy access with various methods, through voice, device hard buttons or the soft button in the interface. It should be able to be accessed from any apps working in the background and provide contextaul information.
