Levi’s Easy In-Store Returns
Problem
Levi’s consumers preferred to return their e-comm purchases to retail stores to avoid the return shipping fee. However, because of the dated technology, consumers typically waited 8-10 minutes (sometimes up to an hour) for the transaction. This led to added stress to our store employees (we call them, “stylists”) and overall consumer dissatisfaction.
Goal
Create an intuitive point-of-sale application that performed an accurate return in under 3 minutes. We did this in 8 months, from discovery to handoff.
Process
User surveys, discovery interviews, competitive research, ideation, information architecture, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, and iterating
Role
Lead UX Designer with team of 6 Engineers, 2 Product Managers, 1 Project Manager, 1 UX Researcher, 1 UX Copywriter, in collaboration with 3 Retail Operations Specialists
Outcome
Final product launched early 2019 with roll-out to all US Levi’s stores (~200 retail locations) and won the 2020 Impact Award for being one of the most transformative projects of the year. Here’s a prototype of the final product:
Process
Research & Discovery
To understand current pain points and user expectations, we surveyed and interviewed store stylists and surveyed end consumers. Altogether, we learned:
Consumers and stylists expect this interaction to be simple and quick (2-3 minutes)
Consumers are extra attentive since we’re dealing with their money. In turn, store stylists are extra diligent about addressing consumers’ questions and/or concerns
Store stylists need expert-level knowledge about this online order in a very short amount of time to provide accurate discount and refund information
During the busiest return season of the year (around the holidays), there are more inexperienced seasonal employees who usually learn by observing year-round employees
There are many technical difficulties stylists face when working with the dated POS devices – monitors have terrible contrast, systems were slow, and there wasn’t the affordance of a typical computer mouse.
“Returns should take 1-2 minutes. Scan a barcode on the pack slip. Pick the return. Return the funds. Done!”
To help with discussions with the team, I used the insights gathered from the surveys and store visits and created a flow chart and basic structure for the application.
Together with the the engineering, product, and business teams, we refine the information architecture based on technical feasibility and business goals without compromising consumer expectations. After noting all the limitations of all the different API calls needed to get the right information to users at the right time, I created adjusted my mocks accordingly.
Having a visual as reference going into meetings with stakeholders helped facilitate conversations.
Gathering the full engineering team to discuss technologies helped map would what information was needed each step of the way.
After scope was defined, I created a flow chart as reference for the whole team as a reminder of our ideal user journey.
After the information architecture was sorted out, I created a mapping as reference for the engineering team as they started their backend work.
Wireframing & Testing
The tight timeline of this project required design to run parallel with the engineering discovery work and business need refinement. In other words, I was designing with business requirements and development limitations changing weekly. Staying with lo-fi wireframes for as long as I could was key since I was able to work quickly to be flexible with this team.
Always starting with pen and paper (or post-its) to get ideas down quickly.
From flows to UI components, everything comes in sketches first.
Sampling of versions of the same page to adapt to changing needs of the team.
After countless design reviews and testing in our internal labs (which housed the exact POS computers the stores have), the designs were ready for user testing. With help from our UX Researcher, we conducted 2 rounds of user testing we with store associates using clickable prototypes, iterating after each round of testing.
The dungeon-like POS lab was my second home while working on this project. (Contrast and tap targets on these monitors became the bane of my existence.)
Synthesizing user feedback with post-its helped pull out common themes that eventually guided my final design decisions.
Sampling of how the same page evolved as I incorporated feedback from users and stakeholders.
Final version of the application took into account user feedback, last-minute business requirements changes, and development limitation changes.
It’s always best to keep it simple.
Reflection
Beyond winning Levi’s 2020 Impact Award that year, my pride and joy came from hearing directly from users after the launch of Easy In-Store Returns: it was a hit!
Plaza Store employees giving Zipper some love after launching in stores, “We love Zipper!”
One of the key take-aways from this project was involving stakeholders and decision makers as early and as often as possible. During this project, I pushed to have weekly design reviews with product and business stakeholders, a new concept at Levi’s. The team was initially hesitant, but quickly saw the value in these meetings as we were able to have discussions and make decisions quickly.
From the close contact with these stakeholders, I was able to establish great working relationships long after this project had been completed. As part of a small UX team in a company where “UX” was not a well-known term, these relationships were incredibly vital to establishing our presence and value to the company.