Capstone - package pass
Capstone - package pass
Company
University Final Design Project
Year
2021
Type
App Development
UX Research
Project Background
As a part of my capstone project, a team of 3 students and I decided to explore the problems surrounding package theft. With the growth of new e-commerce businesses, arises new types of consumer needs to ensure a business’ success. The current solutions with package theft involve users choosing alternative delivery locations such as a neighbours house, their workplace, or a pick up location. While this solves the problem at hand, customers have expressed that the prefer to receive their packages at home instead of elsewhere.
Our team decided to tackle this problem through a different lens, by looking at supply chain logistics. As a result of its inherent complexity, the scope of this problem is large as it starts with an order online to the retailer and ends with the package received by the customer with courier companies serving as the means of fulfillment. Our solution focuses on scheduling and routing of last-mile delivery, ensuring that the package will end up in the user’s hands at their own convenience.
Situation Impact Statement
Design a system to be used by e-commerce consumers, online retailers, and carrier companies that prevents package theft so that consumers can safely receive packages while the convenience of residential delivery is maintained.
User research was conducted in the preliminary stages of the project to understand the needs and desires of the stakeholders most impacted by package theft. The user research efforts concerned the e-commerce consumer and small business owner personas, as well to a basic delivery driver persona.The team leveraged forum-based fly-on-the-wall, an observational research method that “allows the researcher to unobtrusively gather information by looking and listening without direct participation or interference with the people or behaviours being observed” . This was executed on various carrier companies’, delivery drivers’, and crowdsourced drivers’ subreddits, where the group was able to collect information about these users’ typical job workflows, frustrations, goals, and motivations. The user research carried out in both terms to inform the group more deeply about consumers’ patterns, retailers’ needs, and delivery drivers’ workflows were useful in the continued design iterations of the PackagePass solution.
User Exploration
User experience maps were created for each of the identified stakeholders, pain points were identified and cross-referenced with learnings from the user research phase, and user stories were carved out to address the needs of the users under the “How Might We” design goal. These user stories served as the system requirements and were the basis of the prototype designs.
Prototype Design
Retailer Experience Map
Insights:
Consumer’s pain points lie where they do not have control and need to wait on other parties (can only get answers when they’re given updates)
People want more info about status of package
People want to deliver on a specific day
Schedules change, can be unpredictable / low visibility, last-minute updates, and unhelpfully wide time frames (ie. “today”)
How Might We……
… enable retailers to offer more flexible delivery choices?
… use our retail websites to provide additional shipping information
…provide more shipping options that fit the customers needs
...subsidize the cost of better delivery methods
Thief Experience Map
Insights
Biggest deterrent is human witnesses
Some thieves only take what they can see from the road
Other thieves will approach a house to steal if they know a package is unattended, even if they can’t see it
Some thefts are planned while some thieves are just opportunists (tempted because it looks easy)
Thieves often approach the door with a back-up plan in case someone IS home (ie. pretend to deliver something or ask a question)
How Might We……
… obscure unattended packages from their view?
… make the packages too difficult for them to steal?
… deter them from stealing? Lol
… make thieves think someone is watching?
Consumer Experience Map
Insights:
Consumer’s pain points lie where they do not have control and need to wait on other parties (can only get answers when they’re given updates)
People want more info about status of package
People want to deliver on a specific day
Schedules change, can be unpredictable / low visibility, last-minute updates, and unhelpfully wide time frames (ie. “today”)
How Might We…
… give the consumer more visibility into exactly when their packages will arrive?
… ensure the deliveries are made when the consumer is home?
...make the process for receiving a replacement package easier?
...aid those who are uneducated on using delivery status checking
...help consumers decide which packages are high risk for theft
System Diagram of Solution
Consumer User Story
Design, Test, Iterate, Test, Design again
Low Fidelity Prototyping
The designing and testing of this system component followed an interactive approach. Intermediary user tests for the consumer app were primarily qualitative, as the testing procedure and time commitment for quantitative tests was more demanding. We learned through users and observational research that the competitors in the same problem space have had difficulty with adoption due to poor platform usability and the decentralized nature of the solution. The consumer value proposition of our solution thus included excellent app usability, so verification of the design involved testing: 1. the final prototype’s average SUS score compared to the early version’s score and industry standards, 2. task completion time for the prototype compared to that of similar apps’.
Goals for Testing
Qualitatively assess usability and UX of design
Gather quantitative data to establish benchmarks for future designs
Seek early-stage validation of the solution
User Testing Outcomes
Prototype has some unexpected interactions but a very intuitive user task flow
Average SUS score from 4 responders is 52.5 (industry average = 68)
5 out of 5 testers said they would choose this solution over traditional delivery methods
4 out of 5 testers would not pay extra to use it
5 out of 5 testers expect retailers and carriers to pay for it
Designed solution on Consumer’s End
In order to fully realize this product as a solution to package theft, further research is required, both from a data collection perspective, and from a user testing perspective. With the opportunity to interact with professionals in this space, more insight can be gathered about the logistical side of PackagePass. Having users test the solution from end to end, on a browser and a mobile device will also give more insights into the usability of this product.
I learned a lot from working from this capstone project. While exploring the problem space, I was starting to feel overwhelmed with how vast the problem space was. Narrowing it down and coming up with the final solution was definitely satisfying, but I still felt like there were more design methods that I would have liked to use. Due to the time limitations, this was the furthest we got.