OVERVIEW

Home Depot Merchants use price and cost management software to adjust the prices of merchandise in the store.

During my time at The Home Depot I worked on the merchandising and pricing team responsible for creating price and cost management software. Merchants used this software to adjust the prices of merchandise in the store. In order to compete in the market price adjustments had to be made with the least friction possible.

I worked on helping merchants quickly recover from errors with clear messaging.

PROBLEM

Merchants don’t have in-app access to their applications.

Productivity decreased for Merchant Planners who encountered unrecoverable errors while using the software to make retail and cost changes.

CHALLENGES

Unfortunately, the burden of SSO account creation falls on the user.

Alining the product team on this initiative.

Understanding software error messaging and error handling…

SCOPING

Error messaging best practicies.

I first researched the best practcoes for error messages and presented my findings to the product team to bring alignment.

Consistent application branding and even clearer messaging will reduce friction in the flows.

I then conducted an assumptions and hypothesis workshop with my team to express all of our assumptions regarding error messaging in the software, and develop a testable hypothesis for starting research. I created a research plan to document our progress.

SURVEY

I performed a series of moderated usability studies to see how merchants performed in the flows.

After identifying th top eleven errors that occured in the system, I created and sent out a survey to over 100 Merchant Planners to gauge their understanding of the error messages. I received over 80 responses which gave us a lot of data to work with, but I still needed to understand the “why” behind the problem. I decided to conduct a design simulation with users.

DESIGN SIMULATION

I performed a series of moderated usability studies to see how merchants performed in the flows.

I asked 9 Merchant Planners of difference experience levels to meet with me for the design simulaton. I also invited my product managers so they could see first hand the errors users were encountering. I walked the Merchant Planners thorugh each error to determine their understanding of the erros and any workarounds they had. I also asked for soluyions that would help them recover.

AFFINITY MAPPING AND PRIOTITIZATION

After the design simulation I met with my team to affinity map the data and to prioritize which errors we wanted to tackle first. I conducted a 2 x 2 pritotization excersize and we decided to first address the errors that presented the highest pain and took the least amount of time to implement.

IDEATION AND MOCKUPS

I conducted a white-boarding session with my product team to ideate on possible solutions. Based on user feedback from the design simulation , our solutions were pretty straight-forward. I decided that quick concept tests would help us validate or invalidate our hypothesis.

CONCEPT TESTING AND OUTCOMES