Steve Shaheen, CEO and founder, DTG.
A while ago my coworkers and I were thrilled to receive an order for our mobilized power workstations from an electronic components manufacturer. They were looking to help employees perform assembly work, as well as traverse across the warehouse, picking parts and preparing items for distribution. Our solution seemed to be the perfect fit—carefully designed to meet the needs of manufacturing, warehouse and logistics operations. Or so we thought.
When the company was planning the roll-out of the workstations, they were anticipating incredible responses from staff, who would now be able to conduct their computing and component delivery right at the point of task, with more comfort and less chance for injury.
Except there were a couple issues: The carts were too wide for the various corridors in the plant, and this particular site’s staff was mostly comprised of women, who tend to have a lower average height than their male counterparts. Not only was the fit a tight squeeze, but employees needed to crane their necks to view their laptop screens on the cart.
When we designed our workstations, we thought we took everything into consideration. We took into account everything that might be needed to remove motion waste and allow employees to do their jobs more efficiently and safely. We tested our carts out with real people to make sure everything ergonomically met their needs—but those real people were men.
With this situation, my company learned a valuable lesson. In order to truly deliver what customers need, we need to start with a human-centric approach, built on user experience (UX) and human-centered design.
According to Harvard Business School, human-centered design is “a problem-solving technique that puts real people at the center of the development process, enabling you to create products and services that resonate and are tailored to your audience’s needs.” And Forrester found that “companies that prioritize design get in return increased loyalty, better stock performance, higher revenues and larger valuations.”
Start by getting to the root cause.
Beginning with design experience, or UX, not only ensures that you are pleasing customers, but it can save inordinate amounts of money and resources. The challenge, however, is that customers often know they have a problem, such as slow order fulfillment, but they’re not quite sure of the root cause. Before design begins, it’s important to visit the customer site and observe it in action.
To that end, I suggest to begin each customer engagement with a site visit and consider performing a Lean Six Sigma analysis. You—and your customers—may be amazed at what you find.
For example, one of our customers, an e-commerce logistics provider, felt they could speed up deliveries, but they were perplexed as to what was slowing them down. Through our analysis, we found that motion waste in the warehouse was impeding prompt delivery. For each parcel shipped out, an operator had to get the product ready for shipment, write down location and shipping information, walk to the pallet, confirm that the shipping information was correct, walk back to the workstation to enter the information into a database and then walk once again to a printer for the labels. We estimated that on average, more than 180 minutes were wasted each day, at a cost of approximately $750 per day.
Getting to the real crux of the problem is key to setting out on the right path, but how, then, do you lead with UX and design to build the right solution? Consider the following four tips:
1. Speak to the stakeholders.
Management doesn’t always have all the answers. It’s important to talk to the actual employees with boots on the ground to understand the frustrations, roadblocks and concerns. Other stakeholders can be partners, finance officers, IT staff and more.
Make sure you understand the situation from everyone’s point of view. And don’t end contact once the solution is developed and deployed. Continue to take the pulse with regular feedback surveys.
2. Integrate design with development.
Once you have a clear understanding of the customer’s needs, it’s important to establish close alignment between designers and developers to make sure the specifications and features are feasible and incorporated into the solution. When it’s the same company conducting UX/design and development, it can be easier to ensure strong synergies between the teams.
3. Build a customizable solution.
While specific requirements will be built into the solution to meet the customer’s needs, it’s important to leverage components and parts that can be easily customized to meet specific user needs. For example, can the solution easily be adapted to meet different ergonomic requirements or additional functionality?
4. Use prototypes for thorough testing.
Before a customer solution is fully deployed and built out, implement a basic “test” version to make sure it will meet the needs of the customer and allow time for tweaks to the features or ergonomics.
Each and every customer engagement is a partnership, and I’ve found the key to a successful one is helping customers determine the root cause of their business challenges and then delivering solutions that solve them. This can only be determined through objective analysis, careful listening and walking a mile in their shoes. It’s the heart of user experience.
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