During my summer internship, I worked on a project to evaluate user satisfaction with Symbotic's SymMobile interface and redesign the navigation system. With an interface specifically designed to aid on-site operators at Symbotic distribution centers, this project gave me insight in designing to impact SymMobile users' unique experiences.
Due to NDA restrictions, I cannot disclose all details about my project.
Please contact me for more information at debchung@umich.edu.
When defining the scope of the assignment, Symbotic BreakPack users initially stated their struggles with navigating the Putwall interface of SymMobile. They find using the Putwall to be an overall cumbersome and tedious experience that takes longer than they would like.
The cluttered interface and navigation system caused users to be disoriented and take longer to both track and mark tote locations. I worked with the UX Research and Design team to further investigate and improve this issue.
To accurately visualize the navigation process, I created a user flow diagram of a system operator navigating from Putwall Zone PZ3103 to adjacent Putwall Zone PZ3104. The current path is tedious, circular, and an overall cumbersome process.
This interface is only available to onsite system operators, engineers, and managers. I focused research individual external stakeholder goals and use cases with the interface to create a solution that impacts all possible users, which are outlined below.
Constant communication with onsite managers/wranglers to verify specific tote locations and mark spots as Maintenance Needed.
Overall monitoring of Putwall screen; counting the number of different tote types.
Onsite workers in charge of physically checking tote locations and bot statuses.
Usually do not interact with the Putwall UI, but communicate directly with S.O’s to mark locations.
Typically identify as managers or Night Shift, and travel through every Put Zone to verify each tote’s status in the Putwall UI.
Using a double-diamond design approach, I conducted user interviews to accurately assess user needs + pain points and create specific problem statements. Considering that there are a total of 6 SymMobile users at the Breakpack operation site, I conducted 3 user interviews to assess site operators' current experiences with the interface.
After determining the research goals and user groups, I solidified the following research questions to structure user interviews:
1. What specific features of the current Putwall interface makes it inconvenient and tedious for users to use SymMobile?
2. Do stakeholders experience different UI problems depending on their role?
3. How do users currently work through their interaction with the Putwall interface?
4. What and where are the current pain points during a Putwall UI user’s workflow?
After coding interview notes into sticky notes in Miro, I tagged the codes into clusters and overall themes that were users revealed.
Users revealed features and experiences that were necessary for their role at Symbotic, while outlining current pain points while using SymMobile.
I created 3 actionable insights based on user needs and pain points from research that fell within the scope of the assignment. These insights directly outline the current problem and what direction I can move in without influencing design decisions from user recommendations.
2 of 3 users find navigating the Putwall disorienting. Participants failed to keep track of zone labels, because as they scroll it moves and the UI has a lag, making it even more frustrating for them. To improve navigation, make sure the zones are easily readable at all times even when scrolling.
100% of users find difficulty navigating Putwall zones. Participants expressed frustration while navigating from one putwall zone to the next due to the tedious extra clicks needed to get to an adjacent putwall zone. To provide a way to seamlessly navigate from one putwall zone to the next, explore a different method to move from zone to zone by changing users' interaction pattern.
2 of 3 users find monitoring the status of the Putwall cumbersome. Participants failed to keep count of totes, because they lost count during the process of scrolling through the Putwall interface. To improve the continuous monitoring process, incorporate methods of tote tracking to Putwall screen design without adding to visual clutter.
improve the navigation system through the SymMobile Putwall UI's visual elements to combat cumbersome and disorienting navigation?
improve the transition to adjacent Putwall Zones in the SymMobile Putwall UI screen to prevent a tedious and cyclical user flow?
For the redesign of this project, I created sketches, low fidelity wireframes, mid fidelity mockups, and high fidelity prototypes while receiving frequent feedback through mentorship and design reviews with the UX team. I found design reviews to be crucial! Getting feedback from seasoned designers allowed me to constantly ask myself "why" and place intentionality in many different aspects.
Unfortunately, due to the small user base, I didn't receive as much usability feedback during the design process as I would have liked.
Initial sketches allowed me to get creative and "design vomit" my ideas into possible solutions. By drawing out simple solutions, I explored many different designs, no matter how outrageous.
I created Low Fidelity wireframes to block out spaces and explore the practicality of my initial sketches. After presenting these initial designs to mentors and senior designers, I got feedback on which design direction to move in.
Some main points of feedback:
- We want to keep designs consistent with original features, so users are still familiar with the functionality.
- Think about which user needs take priority, and how certain designs can directly address those priorities.
After choosing a direction, I created mockups of the breadcrumb-like navigation menu system. From here, I was able to receive much more direct feedback on specific features such as button positions/sizes, menu names, and labels.
Some main points of feedback:
- There is no need for viewing tote count in Single Zone view if it's already in Overall view.
- The menus can be horizontally or vertically oriented.
- The current design system does not support a 'currently viewing' but has a blue selected state.
I started to finalize and prototype the designs, and incorporated interactable features that would aid the design. I added a feature to hover over the menu items to access each Put Slot Range in order to save space and decrease visual clutter.
From the prototyping process, I made sure to note some aspects that cannot be prototyped in Figma but still implemented by the development team, such as the snap feature while scrolling to combat disorientation.
To validate design decisions and create improvements, I conducted usability tests with the remaining system operators on site. In this process I created a script and procedure to structure the test, and used Maze and Microsoft Teams to facilitate the calls.
After conducting 3 usability tests and organizing themes from the transcripts, I also analyzed the heatmaps collected from maze to support in determining users' comfortability with the new interface.
2/3 users felt the hover feature was intuitive.
Overall, 3/3 users preferred to always have Put Slot Range labels to be visible for the sake of navigation efficiency.
2/3 users identified both buttons that go to adjacent Put Zones and labels that identify direction.
1 user relied on prior knowledge of Putwall orientation to determine direction.
3/3 users easily recognized and selected the correct Put Slot Range through the vertical button menu.
Due to a lack of time, I redesigned the horizontal menu according to usability test results and referenced the remaining themes in the recommendations made from research:
1. Make put slot ranges always visible on horizontal menu.
2. Explore and test including a more system-matching navigation system in single zone view.
3. Consider assisting/onboarding users in using new horizontal menu and adjacent Put Zone button designs.
I am so grateful for this internship because it gave me the opportunity to work hands-on create change that will directly be making a difference. Symbotic emphasizes that interns are given large responsibilities, which I definitely experienced this summer.
During one of our intern events, we learned that it isn't about chasing a position or title, but gaining experience that makes a huge difference in career development. I hope to bring this mentality into every successive career opportunity I come across in the future.
Throughout the duration of this project, I interacted with the UX Team, mentors, and users. I learned so many valuable lessons and pieces of advice, both technical and overall, that I plan to incorporate into more projects and team interactions in the future. I outlined some of the most impactful lessons below:
Take notes and write down everything.
The mentors and senior designers on my team had so much prior design experience and the reasoning behind their feedback came so naturally to them. Many times, they would state so many impactful things in passing, so I began to document everything and later use those notes to help me with my designs throughout the summer.
Ask questions and say thanks.
I remember when interacting with my boss's boss about a project and being scared to ask any major questions, but eventually coming to a place where I realized that I am a major part of the process, and people respect what opinions I have to bring to the discussion. At the end of the project, they thanked me for my hard work with a ~cool~ "Thanks Deb", and I realized how much value there is to expressing co-workers for their hard work and commitment.
Know the product, no matter what your role is.
Learning the niche details helps you gain so much more knowledge to apply in empathetic designs and user research. It makes such a huge difference to know what the users' roles are to know how they may seek improvements in an interface, especially in a product for a niche user group. Even though I was not familiar with some of the systems that are in place at Symbotic, familiarizing myself with the details helped me later on while speaking with stakeholders and major users.
As stated, I was the UX designer and researcher for this project and the only UX intern at Symbotic for the summer.
In addition to this project, I supported the senior UX Designer in a smaller-scale project designing signs for on-site warehouse workers to wrangle Symbots (package handling robots). I also contributed to other design projects involving graphic design, typography, and the Symbotic design system.
