Kitchen Budapest was hired to improve the package handling process at the client's pick-up locations with the following objectives:
In order to provide insight for the design process we had to understand the workers and the context of their work at the pick-up locations. This case study focuses solely on this step of the project.
I was responsible for leading the research and also the design in the later stage of the project. I worked closely together with our tech lead, who I involved in the research process.
We conducted 4 contextual inquiry sessions at two pick-up locations. We asked the workers to teach us their processes as they were doing them and think of us as new colleagues. Later we practiced some of the steps under their supervision to ensure we understood them fully.
On a prior expert interview and site visit we learned that the package handling process is rather complex. Workers have to solve ad-hoc issues every day that create new exceptions. We decided that the best way to gain a proper understanding is to become one of them on a usual workday.
The sessions gave a good understanding of the workers’ profile. We learned their process and uncovered the most pressing issues:
The process is slow and stressful:
<aside> ⚠️ numerous error-prone, ****redundant manual tasks
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<aside> ⚠️ workers rely highly on clients' information of their packages due to the current storage strategy and inefficiency of the IT system
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<aside> ⚠️ lack of space complicates the process of finding packages
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The process is difficult to learn:
<aside> ⚠️ packages are stored in 24 different places scattered in 4 rooms and this changes continuously
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