Peer Robot

Project plan

Context

Steelcase specializes in custom furniture through RFP's and engages in detailed communication with clients to create tailored products

Steelcase's customization process requires extensive collaboration. Clients, dealers, salespeople, and design experts communicate to create the desired furniture. This multi-party interaction ensures that the final product meets the customer's needs.

Background Research

Research shows Steelcase's furniture customization process involves a substantial amount of complex information. Combined with intricate communication channels, this results in significant frustration for salespeople due to the challenges in effectively conveying and navigating the necessary details.

Problem

During this process, Salespeople handling RFPs often face communication challenges between customers and experts, as email leads to misunderstandings.

Client interviews reveal three recurring pain points that impact the customization process. These issues often result in misunderstandings and frustrations throughout the project lifecycle.

Conducting Quantiative Research

Salespeople interviewed highlighted the complexity and time-consuming nature of the customization process. They noted that these factors frequently lead to complications at various project stages.

So the good part is that it (email) gives you documentation. The bad part is you can have questions and answers going back and forth.

Salesperson at Steelcase

User Need

Salespeople need a transparent project workflow and clear team communication channels to manage the customization process from start to finish effectively.

by addressing these needs, Salespeople and the Steelcase team will be able to achieve:

Challenge

With this in mind, how might we improve transparency over the project process to keep salespeople on the same page across teams?

Research and Insights

Our interviews and research revealed the user journey and its pain points. This insight highlighted the need for greater transparency in tracking project progress.

Developing persona's

We created detailed user personas by combining insights from in-depth primary interviews with Salespeople and extensive secondary research. This approach ensured a well-rounded understanding of our target audience.

Identifying User Journey

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Design Strategy

Steelbox provides tracking capabilities and visual information to support them in having transparency through the team to improve their efficiency in processing the RFP from the dealers.

Information Architecture

Utilize Information Architecture (IA) to logically organize product elements, ensuring intuitive access to features and seamless navigation between pages

Design Solution 1

Leveraging different metrics to help salespeople prioritize projects and furniture to improve work efficiency.

Salespeople can generate project updates through RFQ inputs

When a client informs the dealer of their requests, the dealer sends a Request for Quote (RFQ) to the salesperson, who inputs it into the system. The system then scans the keywords and updates the project accordingly.

Salespeople and teams can furthermore prioritize projects through color and deadlines

Salespeople and teams can coordinate projects and enhance work efficiency by aligning them with specific deadlines. These deadlines can be color-coded to correspond with their timelines.

Interactive Prototype

Prototype Insights

Through this solution, Salespeople can:

Use RFP for Easier Requests

Have overviews of projects

Prioritize projects by color

Design Solution 2

Increasing team engagement through project visualizations and tracking history.

Salespeople have access to comprehensive project details and product information.

Salespeople and team members can view detailed visuals of project spaces and product information, which encompasses details such as quality, client, and size.

Salespeople and teams have access to a timeline history of products and can contact individuals involved in the product's development.

Steelbox provides a history of changes, detailing the nature of modifications made along with corresponding price points. Salespeople can also contact team members involved in a project directly to engage in conversations.

Interactive Prototype

Prototype Insights

Through this solution, Salespeople and Teams can:

See project space and project details

Update and historical progress tracking

See a list of all team members on the project

Design Solution 3

Promoting Team Cohesion through External Collaboration and Internal Empowerment

Salespeople can export and distribute a PDF of their completed work to clients to ensure transparency.

Salespeople can choose completed items to share with clients in a PDF format, allowing them to view the interior layout and products to track progress.

Furthermore, Salespeople can contact teams directly on mobile for instant team discussion

During interviews, several salespeople noted difficulties in reaching out to teams and scheduling meetings. Consequently, they can promptly schedule team meetings and receive notifications on their phones.

Interactive Prototype

Prototype Insights

Through this solution, Salespeople and Teams can:

Quickly schedule and be notified of meetings

Share reports to external and internal teams

Improve communication externally and internally

Prototype Development

Ideation and Concept Generation

After gaining a deeper understanding of the problem, we created concepts and storyboards to present to the client for their feedback on the identified issues.

Early Ideation phase

Utilize Information Architecture (IA) to logically organize product elements, ensuring intuitive access to features and seamless navigation between pages

Storyboards for usecases

Wireframes and interaction

After ideation, we moved to low-fidelity wireframes and interactions to facilitate user testing with the Steelcase sales team.

Following the completion of the initial wireframes, we conducted user testing with Steelcase's sales teams, product managers, and internal experts. Additionally, we gathered feedback on our interface's interaction design from peers and academic mentors, utilizing these insights to enhance and iterate on our prototype.

Prototype Interation

Based on user testing, we iterated on the product, making adjustments to hierarchy, improving clarity, and streamlining navigation.

Feedback from Steelcase salespeople provided valuable insights for developing the prototype further. Salespeople particularly emphasized the need for enhanced visuals of project interiors on the project page and clearer product information on the product page.

From Misunderstandings to Successful Communication

By adopting Steelbox, Salespeople stand to gain:

RFP Completion Time Cut by 30%

Miscommunication reduced by 43.7%.

Enhance Usability & Learnability 90%

What stood out to me is the things we lack desperately, especially when it comes to making things visual and helping with information management.

Project Manager of Stelcase

X

Duration

Aug 2022 - Dec 2022

My Role

User Researcher Lead

Project UI and UX Designer

Systems Designer

Prototyper

Ideator

Team

Dennis Siegert

Yiwen Teng

Shenghui Gao

Design Tools

Miro

Figma

Adobe Suite

Takeaways:

Initially, our team struggled a lot with understanding client wants and needs. This project helped us understand the significance of interviewing with clients and we ultimately succeeded in a project that the client was satisfied with. With frequent team discussions and planning, we were able to achieve success. This project also helped us further understand the importance of team planning and brainstorming which further aided us in having better teamwork.

Future Steps:

Future Steps would incorporate exploring the project further in sharing project details with external teammates. This can be explored in the exportation of the project to emails. Another pinpoint is that most RFQs are mainly given through emails, being able to connect the RFQ page to teammates' emails. This would minimize the need of having to further download the RFQ but directly scan it from emails into the board.

Contact

Phone: +1 917-216-9032
Email: dsiegert@id.iit.edu

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dennissiegert

Dennis Siegert 2024
UI and UX designer

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