My team worked to develop a more effective way to report the IP security cameras in the store when they had gone down. My role was the team designer and I conducted research interviews, facilitated group design sprints, designed prototypes, and lead user testing initiatives. I worked with 1 developer and together, the two of us were guided by a product team.
Together me and my teammate conducted close to 10 interviews from people both inside and outside the company. Our focus was to hear different perspectives, especially different teams, to find out what aspects of the process were creating friction and developing time delays in repair. We were able to bring this finding to our core team and work together to prioritize and develop effective designs that could be used by all parties.
The next step was then to follow a design sprint model with the team. We synthesized the research to find consistent problems in the experience that we could target. Taking all these problems, we evaluated them on a 2x2 grid based on complexity to implement and need for the user.In order to remove ourselves from a “solutioning” mindset right away, we converted these problems in to How Might We statements (HMWs). This prioritizes opportunities as opposed to solutions, focusing on resolving user challenges.After selecting our top HMWs, we had an interdisciplinary design studio for designers, product managers, and developers to share their ideas on potential solutions. These solutions were then prioritized again with the same 2x2 grid.
Our final developed product was a one-stop-shop tool for IP camera repair. We removed duplicate steps in the process and allowed for collaboration between different parties of the repair process.
The Importance of User Testing
Without testing this product with our target users, we would have never discovered that our assumptions were totally wrong! Our original product was collecting information that most of these users did not have access to on a daily basis.
Communication is Key
With an organization as big as The Home Depot with over 400,000 employees, it is not rare to find teams that are interdependent on the same data and process. I found that by interviewing many people who were tangential to the IP camera repair process, we were able to develop a clearer idea of how repair is being approached by different departments and who internally is affected by these down cameras.
Iterations, Agile, and Failure…oh my!
Coming into my first UX research and design internship, I was terrified that I would make a mistake or not be able to truly understand user needs. It turns out that I did both those things, many, many times….and the industry calls this process being agile! Being open to making mistakes and verifying assumptions with users was key to creating a product that was valuable to the company.