Warehouse Logistics App

iPhone App connected to Scanning Sled

Project Overview

At PayPal, I was the sole designer on the Warehouse Operations and Logistics team for Happy Returns. Three warehouses, called hubs, received returns from return bars in retail stores and through parcel mail. These return items go through two separate sortation processes, packed into shipping boxes, placed onto pallets, then shipped back to the different retailers on trucks.

Unfortunately, I am unable to show the exact designs I did for PayPal. So, I have recreated a similar demo to demonstrate one of the processes I designed and implemented for the transportation of materials across the warehouse. My designs directly increased processing speed of returns by 150%.

User Research

I needed to make sure that I nailed my designs because if I didn’t, warehouse operations would grind to a halt. In HBO’s The Wire, they say “An officer is only as good as their informants.” This applies to UX Designers as well. Users are the most important when it comes to product research, specifically interviews and tests.

I spent a lot of time at the hub interviewing as many warehouse workers as I could, showing them the designs that I had in progress and walking them through a prototype to get their feedback. I also would do their warehouse processes myself to get a feel for what they were possibly needing to make their jobs easier and more efficient. I made sure that I knew how to do all of their tasks in order to be able to design well for it.

App Flow

*Please note: these are design wireframes. Colors and fonts were decided later. This shows a simple layout to understand the process of the app for the user.

Final Thoughts

This project took several months and lots of coordination and collaboration in order to get it right. I perform an extensive amount of user research in order to nail it. Happy Returns began this project to meet requirements to sign our biggest customer at the time. The customer required a signed Service Level Agreement that Happy Returns was, at the time, not capable of meeting. Within the first month of implementation of my designs, including the above Shipping Box to Pallet process, Happy Returns not only met, but surpassed the SLA by 100%. It resulted in an overall increase in warehouse productivity by 150%.