A Complete Solution for the Enterprise Mailcenter
Shipping 360 Platform
Background
Global enterprises that serve the various needs of people around the world are names and functions we are mostly familiar with. However, the mail rooms that support these enterprises are basement-based productions we don't see as they are mostly out of sight, out of mind for the people they serve. These mailrooms process thousands of incoming and outgoing packages in a single day to help big organizations function without missing a beat.
Problem
People who work at the mail center have various jobs to be done and they often use a ton of different tools to accomplish these tasks. This becomes especially problematic when the same person is doing two or three different jobs. At the same time supervisors and Operations Heads who oversee the mailcenter have the need to look at how the mailcenter is performing in order to allocate budget for workforce. The quarterly activity of collecting data and churning insights from the data is always a painful process for them.
Solution
A single platform that caters to all the roles at the mail center by providing functionality around Shipping, Receiving, Last mile delivery using Lockers and Analytics.
My Role
Interaction Designer / Architect
Responsible for ensuring the architecture (scope), navigation, and workflows were prioritized across 4 product teams along with a dedicated backend engineering team, as the platform was developed, deployed, and launched.
Key Stakeholders
XD Architect, CX Architect, UX Researchers, Sr Product Management, Sr Engineers & Development teams, Sales & Customer Satisfaction teams, Customer Support Agents, and more.
Start With the Outcome in Mind
The Double Diamond Framework clearly conveys a design process to designers and non-designers alike. The two diamonds represent a process of exploring an issue more widely or deeply (divergent thinking) and then taking focused action (convergent thinking).
This is not a linear process as the arrows on the diagram show. Teams often learn something more about the underlying problems which can send them back to the beginning. Making and testing very early-stage ideas can be part of discovery (low or high-fidelity prototyping).
If possible, experimentation with actual code to a limited set of users can provide invaluable feedback to how actual clients interact with the delivered code as validation of the concept. Tools such as FullStory can provide the usage data which can inform a new challenge to iterate on.
DISCOVER - Talk to Clients, Visit Clients
A big part of our research included ethnographic studies and contextual inquiries conducted at mail centers of government agencies, enterprises and universities. A few clients we visited
Ethnographic Study - Navy
Ethnographic Study - HHS
Identify User Profiles, Roles, and Jobs To Be Done
“I need detailed reports with insight into our mailroom processes with key measures of how everyone is applying those processes."
“I need to send packages and ship requests. I also need to manage history and transaction reports.”
"I need to receive packages from the loading dock and sort them into routes for delivery and monitor volumes”
“I need to reserve lockers for package placement and optimize utilization of lockers for all locations.”
Since users wanted a focused experience without being overwhelmed by unnecessary tasks, we needed the ability to customize an experience based on the client persona. The best way to do this effectively, was to provide Pitney Bowes Professional Services representative with the ability to set up everything and Turn features ON/OFF based on a client's business needs
“I need to onboard the client and provide the right setup so users can see a tailored experience that meets their needs.
Sketch, Whiteboard, Ideate, "What If" Scenarios
Like every other vendor on the market, Pitney Bowes also provides solutions for the mail center but each of our solution handles only one specific piece of the mail center operations. We had to find a way to bring our own products together on a single platform in order to provide a one stop shop solution. But before we did that, we first identified the core needs of different personas and categorized them into buckets as we now knew the mail center needs. We finally started to pull together the complete list of products we offered in the market to understand which of these products we could bring onto a single platform
Early Architecture Sketches
Understanding our various product offerings and putting them together with the key insights derived from our ethnographic studies helped us understand that in order to provide a certain user with only what they need and avoid unnecessary confusion we had to heavily personalize the experience based on the personas and in order to do that we would need a dedicated console that turns ON only what a user needs. These findings helped us frame our design strategy and early architecture conversations.
Facilitate Client Impact Workshops
Once we identified our design strategy, we wanted to quickly validate our thought process and the core workflows we identified as user needs, so we went to a large insurance client in Columbus Ohio and brought a few mailroom clerks and supervisors together to do a quick design thinking session with a couple of hand-picked Human Centered Methods.
This exercise validated our thought track and informed us that we are in the right direction. We repeated this validation process with a few other clients before we moved forward.
Existing Design - 4 separate products to support mailcenters
SendPro Online
SendSuite Tracking Online
SendSuite Tracking Online
SendSuite Tracking Online
SendSuite Tracking Online
SendSuite Tracking Online
Intelligent Lockers
SendSuite Tracking Online
Intelligent Lockers
SendPro Analytics
SendSuite Tracking Online
Intelligent Lockers
Overcoming Challenges Using Existing Code
CHALLENGE #1 - Lack of consistency with Design System versions on products
The four products were on different versions of our Design System (including different tech stacks) and the latest version which was going to release months after the design work on this product started. This version had changed its visual language completely.
This meant two things.
1. We couldn't reuse most of the elements in the current products.
2. If we use the current version of the Design System, this product will not be on the latest version by the time of its release leading to more work a few months down the lane as it is now outdated.
APPROACH - Collaborate with the Design System team and apply upcoming updates to the platform
To address lack of consistency with design system versions, we decided to reuse the latest design system that was in the works and ready to release in the next two months. We worked closely with the Design System team to align with the new brand guidance, visual language and components.
We went with the classic color theme and classic gradient to keep our options open around white labelling the platform in the future. We also decided to showcase our product pages using a tinted background to help focus on content and important pieces of information as needed.
CHALLENGE #2 - Providing way-finding that abides with core design principle
Figuring out a navigation system for products that are already feature rich was going to pose a unique challenge especially when we want to abide by our design principle i.e. no visual clutter. This meant we had to stick to two rules that would guide our designs.
1. We had to optimize and personalize our navigation, so users only saw what they needed.
2. To support the previous statement, we needed an all-new place where product administrators / professional services team can turn features ON/OFF based on roles
APPROACH - Providing way-finding that abides with core design principle
To optimize navigation, we went with a primary and secondary navigation bar structure where primary navigation labels lead users to different capabilities on the platform while secondary navigation labels lead users to the specific pages within the platform. On this platform these specific pages will be configured based on a users role in order to personalize their experience.
We recognized four user profiles through research - Supervisor, Receiving Clerk, Sending Clerk and Locker Administrator
RESULT - Navigation for Mailcenter Supervisor
This shows the design supporting the role-based principle of only show the user what they need. In this case, a blending of capabilities as an example of a smaller mailcenter supervisor.
More Experience Examples by Role
Supervisor Experience; "Show me the data"
This page provides a snapshot of all the data needed by a supervisor to do their job effectively. The user can review associated KPI's, trends, and charts for package data across multiple capabilities such as Receiving (with locker usage) and Sending (with spend and volume metrics).
Mailcenter Clerk; "Single-page Shipping"
The landing page provides key entry points for the user including recent activity.
Clicking "Create Shipping Label" provides the user with an optimized layout that allows enterprise clients to ship items quickly and accurately. A "pre-flight" summary allows for review of all the shipment's details before clicking the Print button.
Receiving Agent; "Packages Go FAST"
The landing page provides key entry points for the user including recent activity metrics to see how the mail center's delivery performance can be optimized.
Clicking "Receive" provides the user with an optimized layout that allows enterprise clients to receive multiple packages quickly to one or more recipients. A critical enterprise client feature for "pouching" was added new to this capability on the 360 platform.
Locker Admin; "No More Attempted Fails"
The landing page provides key entry points for the user including recent activity metrics to see how the mail center's delivery performance can be optimized.
Clicking "Reserve Locker" provides the user with an optimized layout that allows enterprise clients to reserve a locker for one or more packages to a recipient.
The admin can additionally configure the locker banks to meet their needs or limit access for departments or business units.
Professional Services; "Secure Client Setup"
The "Client Setup" landing page provides key entry points for the user to allow detailed onboarding per client or enterprise. This allowed clients to be fully configured to their needs prior to going live, including Subscription Setup, Sign-in Security, Division, Location and Site definition, Carrier accounts (per location if needed), Cost Accounting, Users and Roles, Address Books, and more.
Client Feedback and Iteration Builds Innovation
Constantly Learning
Even though this product had a spotlight on it and a lot of executive pressure for a quick delivery, we made sure it was being validated every step of the way. With each feature we developed we were getting feedback and continuously making changes to the product to better suit our enterprise customer's needs (and our business goals of course).