Transportation Planning & Logistics

Usability Study and Service Blueprinting

WHAT RESEARCH CHALLENGE Were we ASKED TO SOLVE?

Executive members of the Enterprise Logistics Management team were hearing disparaging feedback from one or two employees about an in-house digital tool (named CHILE) meant to make loading trucks with shipments more accurate and efficient.

Executives challenged the product owners to identify the problems and encourage employees to use the new solution.

The Product owners came to UX Design and Research wanting to run a ‘quick survey’ with planners working in two different parts of the process (middle and final miles) to uncover if they were having problems with the system and what they were.

To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obscured confidential information in this case study.

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WHAT WAS the PLAN TO ADDRESS THIS?

After a couple of initial conversations with the ELM Product owners, we agreed that we needed to visualize how the same role (transportation planner) used the same digital solution for different parts of the truck-loading process (middle and final mile).

To uncover and understand any issues clearly, we needed to understand the end-to-end journey—the roles, tasks, and actions, what the planners were doing in the solution, outside the solution, using other tools, and what the back-end systems were doing.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

What are the current tasks employees use the tool to complete?
How are these tasks different between roles, sites, and stages in the shipping process?
What role does the tool play in day-to-day activities on site?
What environmental factors influence the tool's usage?
What usability issues do the users currently face?

Research Methods

Service Blueprinting

Blueprinting exposes the big picture and offers a map of dependencies.
Through internal SME workshops, institutional knowledge is visually captured.
Understand the tool within the overall shipping ecosystem, holistic visualization of the process.
Use for validation sessions with users.
Use to identify process improvements.

Remote Usability Testing

Gather more specific usability findings.
It is quicker than traveling on-site.

Update Existing Persona

Quick reference of the transportation planners’ goals and barriers.

Participants

2-3 internal technical subject matter experts - 1-2 hour sessions to co-create blueprint
8-10 users, 60-min interview sessions to review the blueprint in combination with usability testing
- 4-5 middle-mile workers
- 4-5 final-mile workers

“I don’t have a confident answer as to why or where the core issue was for the change. But it does happen, and what I can attribute it to is when the load splits. So, when we have the issue of it not being sequenced properly, I know for a fact it changes then. But I have also seen it change other times when I wasn’t reconsolidating the load.”

— PARTICIPANT 2

Results

At the end of 7 weeks, deliverables comprised a readout of the final report deck detailing 12 actionable insights, a service blueprint, and a transportation planner persona.

Stakeholders emerged from the project with a deep understanding of the roles, reasons, and methods involved. They also gained insight into the current challenges of the tool and a clear roadmap of opportunities to enhance user confidence.

“But the main identifier I love to use is the freight number or DN, because the DN never changes.”

— Participant 7

Lessons Learned

WHAT DID THIS PROJECT TEACH ME ABOUT RESEARCH, DESIGN, OR MYSELF?

In the spirit of advocating for UX, I have conducted numerous presentations about UX Design and Research to different business units and groups of sales and account representatives.

Furthermore, I have actively engaged our business partners and stakeholders in the world of UX by inviting them to participate in evaluative dry runs. This hands-on approach has not only exposed them to design concepts and research methods but also made them active participants in the UX process.

Possibly, the most effective way to educate business partners and stakeholders is to embed UX into their product teams for a specific purpose and allow them to experience the value of UX in the context of their project, as this initiative did.