Mobile Shipping:
Design as a Tool for Learning
I worked with the mobile team of a shipping company for 3+ years. When they decided to finally include international shipping in the app it was an exciting opportunity to rethink the current shipping flow. International shipping’s bulk of work is taken up by filling out customs info, instead of the usual date, rate, and weight of your day to day domestic shipping.
Design Research Plan for International Shipping Feature
I worked with the Design Researcher on the project to formulate a research plan that would have participants interact with 3 distinct “extreme” prototypes that would stretch users’ and client’s mental models of what a shipping app could be. To facilitate this we developed a 2x2 with the axises of interface density (from spacious to dense) and user’s experience in shipping (from novice, to expert). We sought to create prototypes that leaned into the extremes, learn the best from each, and build a final experience with the learnings from all of them.
3 Research Prototypes Based on 3 Contrasting UX Paradigms
We developed the following 3 prototypes based upon that 2x2.
Instructional (Novice User, Moderately Dense Interface)
A helpful, playful, illustrative style. Aimed more towards the novice user, with a plenty of clear steps, and explanations.
Conversational (Novice to Proficient User, Spacious Interface)
A UI light style based on 20 questions. Instead of the dense formfields shippers are used to, users answer many simple questions quickly, and by the end, the app helps them choose the customs info and shipping rates best for them.
Replicable (Expert User, Dense Interface)
A UI for the pros. Highly flexible, easy to back reference, dense single page with collapsable sections. Powerful tool that allowed user to create and reuse templates.