Kmart

Designing a digital platform that helps team members to manage daily tasks in real-time and improve productivity.
Role: UX & UI designer

"Every store managed stock differently, making it difficult for the business to manage the overall workload, resulting in $10M in annual overspending."

Client

Kmart is the Australian largest general merchandise retailer, with a wide range of everyday products.
Generating over $10 billion annually, with over 300 stores across Australia and New Zealand.

The project goal

To replace the current paper based system with a digital solution to optimise the stock management:
stock faster and sell more.

My role - "The voice of the store team members"

As a designer in the service design team, I am "the voice of the store team members".
My primary goal is to design a product that the team would love to use while achieving the business goals.

I collaborated with a large diverse group of senior stakeholders, including business leaders, tech leaders, store managers and store team members.

My core responsibilities

Strategic planning and roadmap
Design and research strategy
Stakeholder & tech leaders collaboration

Regular in person user testing
Design system
Look for big problems

Problem statement

The inefficient task management process resulted in over $10M in annual overspending due to poor task visibility.
This leads to major operational issues, including:

Empty shelves

Not being able to stock products quickly, result in lost sales opportunities and reduced customer satisfaction.

Poor team member allocation

Overbooking or underbooking of staff, impacting productivity.

Lack of performance visibility

Not being able to track performance and provide immediate support affects the overall store team efficiency.

By solving this problem, the business saves over $22 million annually.

Key impact

Operation hours reduction

- 48 hrs / week

Annual saving

+ $22M

Team member satisfaction score

97%

The platform helps team members and managers manage daily tasks more effectively, identify roadblocks and provide actionable feedback.

Quick overview

Sprint design planning
Create rapid low-fi wireframe to confirm requirement
(To show my understand also make sure everyone is aligned)

Alignment

User flows
In-store research
Low-fi design > check in with devs
High-fi design > check in with stakeholders

Design

Going to stores
Rounds of user testing
Rounds of iteration

Testing and iteration

Design walkthrough
Design document specifications
Prepare for design System
Post handover check in session
UI review (after built)

Design hand over

Design process

My challenge and solution

How much research is enough?

Every store is different, with its own processes.

Many stores relied on inefficient and paper based systems.

🛠️ Solution: find a good balance

With a very tight timeframe, it's impossible to talk to every store about their pain points.
During research, I had to find a balance to decide when we have enough insights to make informed design decisions.

When stores get busy

During peak periods like Black Friday, no one had 10 minutes to sit down for user testing.
Team members are under pressure and focused on getting their work done.

🛠️ Be flexible

I designed a flexible testing plan with “must ask” and “good to ask” questions.

Sometimes, the only opportunity to interact with team members and gather design feedback is while they are busy stocking shelves, particularly during Xmas, and I have learnt to be able to run testing in any circumstance.

A large and diverse group of stakeholders and business leaders

The platform has 2 user types: store team members and managers, between 2 large squads.

While my focus is on designing for the team members, I need to align with the needs of managers.

As this project involves many stakeholders and business leaders, clear communication from the start is the key.

🛠️ Super low-fi wireframe check in after brief

As soon as I receive the requirements, I quickly create a super low-fi wireframe to map out the flows and important elements, and confirm alignment with everyone.

👍 This approach speeds up the design process and helps avoid back and forth.

Being the solo designer in a large squad

My squad has around 20 people, including 10+ developers (both local and overseas), and I’m the only designer.

I always involved developers from the very early stages, encouraging them to think about potential “what if” scenarios or unhappy path scenarios.

🛠️ Communication and collaboration

When handing over designs to developers, I ensure every small detail is clearly mapped out to avoid back and forth questions.

Communication and collaboration are the key, and I enjoy brainstorming and working closely with developers.

Award

I am so lucky to work at a company that not only values hard work but also authenticity,

where I can be myself.