Mobile App
Staff were printing orders and sorting items by hand to work around their own software. I redesigned the app around the work itself.
My Role
Lead UX Designer
Company
Portland Web Design
**Client details generalized**
Product Strategy
Product Design
UX/UI
The Situation
The existing fulfillment app was built around its interface rather than the work. Staff could only pick one order at a time, and the layout wasn't designed for mobile. So they improvised: printing orders, picking several at once, then sorting the items by hand afterward and working through them in the app.
The client, a retail commerce store, wanted a streamlined mobile experience for floor staff, with a consistent flow that could be taught the same way across stores.
How might we:
organize the products to collect while offering flexibility for warehouse employees to plan ahead?
display which products belong to which order?
allow for staff to “Take Over” a picking order that’s been abandoned/incomplete?
My Task
Redesign it as a streamlined mobile tool that fits how the floor actually works, with a flow that could be taught the same way across stores.
What I Did
I worked from regular calls with the client's stakeholders, accounts from my engineering partner of how floor staff worked around the old app, and hands-on time in the existing system using test orders on a staging site. I also studied how an order moves through its lifecycle behind the scenes, which shaped the status design (Pending, Picking, Picked, Completed, with labels that vary by fulfillment type).
I designed workflow-first, giving each stage of the work (pick, stage, load-out) its own focused screens, in close partnership with engineering.
The Results
One flow for a single order or multiple at once.
Multi-order picking was parked as a “future consideration.” We made it the core, and I pressure-tested the edge cases: batching limits, partial picks, and telling items apart across orders.
The same product, two orders, two ways.
One customer wanted it assembled, another boxed. Splitting into separate items wasn't a feasible build, so I showed a breakdown on the item itself.
Taking over a pick.
If someone abandons a pick, another person can take it over through a prompt rather than the order being locked.
