AT&T installs plugs at customer sites, but technicians haven’t been reporting their usage of this expensive equipment item. This is leading to unnecessary and costly reorders. How can we make technicians’ inventory management process better to truly influence their habits?
1
Stakeholder interviews
I used this to align on all necessary components of the solution and took stakeholders’ perceptions of user processes and needs as a starting point for research.
2
User interviews
I set up 1-on-1 sessions with technicians to hear about their inventory management priorities + pain points and understand how the transactions they make connect and flow over time.
3
Contextual inquiry
I wanted a deeper understanding of technician’s pain points. Technicians allowed us to observe them as they went about their duties and used the legacy website.
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The research helped me piece together the technicians’ high-level plug management journey for both installation and repair jobs. These are the flows my solution would have to maintain, since we didn’t have the budget for a new back-end system. The question became, “how can I streamline the tasks?”
1
Repeated manual entries
Technicians repeatedly have to enter lengthy identifying codes, which is time-consuming and frustrating, especially when they are juggling many things at once.
2
Confusion on instructions
The legacy interface makes a plethora of fields available to technicians, giving no indication of what to use when. Technicians are expected to memorize instructions, but expressed feeling overwhelmed given the complex scenarios they experience.
Our technicians need a quick and intuitive way to digitally indicate their equipment transactions in order to feel aligned with their supervisors and spend more time present with customers.
How might we integrate more seamlessly into the user journey?
1
Automate and pre-populate wherever possible
If we can automatically capture details such plug ID and plug location, we can remove the burden of manual input from the technicians.
2
Integrate only relevant actions for the context/job stage
During a job, technicians don’t benefit from seeing all the possible actions they could take. They only need the contextually relevant actions to be made available at each step.
Option 1 - standalone section of the app: a section that lets technicians manage inventory outside of any one job, indicating actions like using a plug off their truck.
Option 2 - integrated on each job: the plugs that are needed for the job are pre-populated and can be indicated as ‘in service’ when the technician has installed it.
In user testing, all technicians tested (5/5) preferred option 2. They expressed that when they reach a customer’s location, they are looking at the job tab. Further, since ‘Equipment’ lives in the existing structure of that tab, it’s where they expect to find plugs.
Since we already had established UI patterns and a thorough component library, I created high-fidelity wireframes of a plug management integrated into installation and repair jobs.
From cross-functional syncs, a few constraints came to light. Development constraints, such as an infeasibility of of fetching previously installed plugs at a customer site, meant I had to pivot the design plan for Repair jobs. While two extra steps needed to be added, we maintained our principles of automation and pre-population throughout the workflow. Developers and designers agreed that adding an API to smoothen this process further was be a near-future priority.
When I shared wireframes with business stakeholders, they were reminded of several nuances that exist in the plug management process. Upon collaborating to understand these fully, I integrated actions such as correcting previous discrepancies and finding spare plugs from other nearby technicians without distracting from the primary plug management workflow.
After handing off numerous wireframes and prototypes and collaborating with developers and quality testers, this feature was successfully shipped.
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The data we gathered from early adopters was positive — we witnessed a 37% increase in reported plug transactions and a decrease in missing plugs. The technicians expressed that they are saving a lot of time. That being said, our ears are always open for ways to improve.