PRODUCT DISCOVERY & DESIGN

WM Dispatch

Team
Details
Role
Timeline
  • 1 Product Designer
  • 1 Researcher
  • 1 Product Manager
  • 1 Group PM
  • ~10 Engineers
  • 1 Design Manager
  • Strategy
  • Research
  • UX/UI
  • Product Design
  • Design Management
  • 8 Months

Background

In 2021, Weedmaps acquired Cannveya, a dispatching product with a strong feature set but lacking in user experience. The objective was to improve the overall experience and integrate it with the Weedmaps B2B suite.

Approach

To tackle the project, we followed a two-fold approach. Firstly, we conducted a comprehensive audit of the entire platform, including the web app and driver app, to gain a holistic understanding of the user flows. Secondly, we initiated a research track to gather initial user sentiment about our product compared to a leading competitor. Stakeholder interviews were also conducted to align with our business goals. Through this research, we identified our primary user, their goals, and our role in their journey.

Problem statement

Dispatchers faced challenges in managing orders and determining efficient delivery routes within a confusing experience. These challenges led to poor ROI for dispensaries and negatively impacted our retention. The goal was to address these challenges and improve the user experience to prevent revenue loss.

" Why is signing up so hard? This should be easy."
- a goHerbalife customer

Canveyya Audit

We embarked on a comprehensive audit and expert review of Canveyya's entire platform, which included a thorough examination of both the web app and driver app. Our primary objective was to achieve a holistic understanding of the user flows.

This process proved immensely valuable as it allowed us to familiarize ourselves with the new product, identify existing issues, and uncover potential opportunities for improvement.

‍

First, let's unearth problems and learn about our users.

For our Design Sprint, our main goal was to deeply understand the challenges and pain points faced by these within the existing experience to best understand scope and priorities of improvements.

To achieve this, we conducted 8 user interviews with dispatch managers, small business owners, and multi-state operators. Led by Laura from User Experience Research (UXR), our team collaborated to gather valuable insights into user needs, pain points, behaviors, and demographic details. This collaborative effort provided a comprehensive understanding of our end users and their daily activities.

We looked to gather insight into their experience of being a dispatch, what tools do they use during their job, what does there day to day look like, and what are their challenges. Along with gathering feedback on the Canveyya experience, including the features; map & list view,  jobs search, and reviewing legacy log ( jobs complete).

Problem Defining

During our research on Canveyya, we discovered that using the platform was more often frustrating than enjoyable. However, this negative feedback provided valuable insights into the shared issues with the current design.

An overwhelming 80% of users found our interface complicated and hard to understand. One user even described the white interface as "eye-burning" - YIKES!! Additionally, only 40% of users successfully scheduled a delivery from start to finish. Furthermore, 80% of users expressed a preference for OnFleet, one of our main competitors.

But it wasn't all bad news. Multiple users liked that the ETA and driver contact information were conveniently displayed in one place, which they considered "everything you need to know." Three users mentioned that despite the UI's flaws, the search experience exceeded their initial expectations.

We also received helpful insights and suggestions from the users. For instance, 60% of interviewees enjoyed the map view, which gave them a bird's eye view of deliveries in transit. However, 80% preferred spending most of their time in the list view. Several users suggested having a persistent search bar that would allow them to look up jobs from any screen.

Overall, the interviews were successful, providing approximately 550 data points within just three days. This extensive data serves as a strong foundation for understanding the most important use cases for our users and identifying potential quick wins to focus on during the upcoming design sprint.

‍

Design Sprint

After gathering user insights, a four-day design sprint was conducted with a team of Five members. The objective was to accelerate the design phase and validate ideas with users at an early stage. Key stakeholders, including a VP, the GM, and the Engineering Director, were interviewed to understand the common tasks of dispatchers.

‍To start, the core sprint team which consisted of a GPM, PM, Design Manager, and myself, identified the dispatchers most common tasks:

👀

Receiving New Orders:
Users wanted to review order details and receive timely notifications for new orders.

🍔

Ensuring Driver are taking required breaks:
To ensure driver compliance with break regulations, users wanted tomonitor and view drivers' active drive time while ensuring they take required breaks as mandated by law.

💬

Communicating with Drivers for Change Updates:
Users wanted to contact drivers via phone call or text message. They utilize phone communication to relay necessary updates and leverage a chat window or messaging platform for real-time communication with drivers.

🗺️

Dispatching Orders:
Users wanted to review order details and driver summaries. They consider time windows and assign orders to suitable drivers based on availability, proximity, and capacity.

🚀

Reviewing Order Optimization:
Users wanted to analyze job lists, utilize a map for route planning, consider time windows, evaluate available drivers, and make necessary adjustments to optimize order assignments.

⚠️

Addressing Delivery Issues:
Users wanted to ensure compliance, resolve communication problems, rectify incorrect addresses, handle driver incidents, assist drivers who have been pulled over, and manage situations with unavailable customers for delivery rescheduling or suitable resolutions.

Stay on target!

There was so many opportunities for improvement, but after careful consideration, we determined that the dispatcher experience would greatly benefit from an updated user journey for the "assign a job" process. This journey encompasses various stages, starting from logging into WMdispatch, followed by job assignment, communication with drivers, and concluding with job completion.

Now let's explore some solutions

Industry best practices, competitor products, and inspiring features were shared with the team. Several sketching exercises were conducted, resulting in component designs that would be used to build the prototype. Ideas included a toggle map for an overhead view, inline roster, delivery status icons, delivery progress bars, improved route view, and a new chat experience with drivers. While the focus was on the "assign a job" user journey, potential future features like onboarding and a customizable dashboard were also identified.

Pro-totype & time to test!

Once we had identified the most promising ideas, Nick took charge of developing the usable prototype. Fortunately, he had already been working on standardizing the dispatch design system, which allowed for a seamless integration of his work. As Nick pieced together the prototype, we supported him by gathering the necessary assets and acted as a sounding board for any questions that arose.

Simultaneously, Laura, our UXR guru, began assembling a pool of users to test the prototype against. Her expertise in user research and testing would be crucial in ensuring that the prototype met the needs and expectations of our target users. By involving real users in the testing phase, we aimed to gather valuable insights and validate the effectiveness of our design decisions.

‍

User testing and prototype feedback

Laura facilitated moderated tests of the newly designed prototype with five users, focusing on gathering valuable data regarding their overall impression, ease of use, and feedback on specific tasks such as assigning jobs to drivers, understanding job status, and utilizing alerts and messaging.

The results of the user testing were highly encouraging, as we observed a significant 40% increase in user satisfaction compared to the previous version. Users found the WMDispatch platform to be more user-friendly, visually appealing, and intuitive, especially when utilizing the map view and the newly implemented chat feature. They particularly appreciated the ability to view routes and timeframes in real-time.

However, there were still areas that required improvement. Users expressed concerns about spending excessive time on certain tasks and suggested ways to eliminate unnecessary steps, thereby streamlining their workflow. Some users also mentioned feeling confused about where to begin within the application, describing a lack of clear guidance on what to prioritize or where to start. Additionally, the absence of support services further exacerbated these issues.

These insights were invaluable and immediately informed our next steps during the subsequent design spike. We recognized the urgent need to streamline processes, remove redundancies, and create a more intuitive onboarding experience. Furthermore, we decided to explore the implementation of just-in-time support features, such as a comprehensive support center offering FAQs and possibly even an AI bot to provide assistance.

‍

Sprint results and takeaways

Users expressed a need for improved guidance and a smoother onboarding process. They also desired a more streamlined experience for completing tasks, which is advantageous as it allows us to develop a lighter minimum viable product (MVP).

I'd have to say the best part about a design sprint is brining the team together to design together. Yes product and design leads, but also it's great to have business stakeholders, developers and subject mater experts in the same "room." working together to solve together. While it's not a one size fits all solution as a design process, it's great to use when the problem is big and unknown.

We got some great insights in a very short amount of time, and with that feedback we already have a design runway set for quarters to come.

Users expressed a need for improved guidance and a smoother onboarding process. They also desired a more streamlined experience for completing tasks, which is advantageous as it allows us to develop a lighter minimum viable product (MVP).

Next, Iterative Spikes and Sprints!

In the design phase of the project, the Group Product Manager (PM) and Designer collaborated to create a story map of features, determine release priorities, and explore edge cases. The design work was divided into three distinct phases.

1. Core Dispatching Flows: This phase focused on developing crucial features such as job dispatching, batch job management, route optimization, assessing driver availability, and improving the onboarding process for new users.

2. Managing Flows: All other core workflows were addressed in this phase, including employee settings editing and additional enhancements to improve the overall user experience.

3. Settings and Enhancements: This phase encompassed a comprehensive list of user-configurable settings, as well as incorporating any enhancements derived from feedback received during the previous two phases.

Coming Soon...

‍