GAYLE
BARTON
Sr. User Experience Designer
Sr. Product Designer
Digital Design Manager
LUCK STONE COMPANIES
Luck Stone is a multi-generation, family run, rock quarrying business in Virginia, that sells crushed stone to commercial construction sites, road builders, and residential builders. Their business consists of extracting rock from quarries, crushing it, and delivering it to job sites. They sold 75 crushed stone products available in a variety of colors, sizes, and gradations to customers in the Mid-Atlantic region. App Link Website link
MY ROLE
As the Lead User Experience Designer for this project, I lead user research, design, testing, and delivery of assets to the development team. The team consists of a director of digital products, a manager, a lead programmer, two junior developers, a business development analyst, a tester and a digital sales associate.
THE BUSINESS GOAL
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To have a digital customer experience that provided instant access to data that the customer needed to run their business more efficiently.
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For the user experience to be as easy as possible, designed with the customer and their daily operations in mind.
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To be able to track deliveries and to keep customers up-to-date on project status.
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To reduce the number of calls to customer service.
DESIGN TOOLS
Sketch
InVision
Axure RP
UX SKILLS & TECHNIQUES
Personas
One on One User interviews
Optimal Sort
• Reframer tool
• Card-sorting
Customer Survey
• Survey Monkey.
Wireframe user testing
MANAGEMENT
SKILLS
Planning, 2 week Sprints
Communication
Decision-making
Problem-solving
DESIGN THINKING
Started the non-linear process that contains five phases:
Empathize
UNDERSTAND THEIR BUSINESS
Having no prior knowledge of the construction and rock mining business, I quickly learned and adapted. I used my UX skills to gathered information from interviews with key business associates. It is a complex business that feeds a very fragmented construction industry, with many users: designers, architects, owners, contractors, subcontractors, asphalt producers, concrete manufacturers, haulers and there are a lot of influencers. I had to learn quickly how to navigate through all of that complexity.
USER INSIGHTS & IDEATION
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Perform heuristic evaluations of existing application
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User Experience Research
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3 personas to help identify the target users
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One on one customer interviews
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Optimal Workshop
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Qualitative research using the Reframer tool
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150 responses from a customer card sort activity using Optimal sort
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300 customer responses from a survey using Survey Monkey
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EXPERIENCE STRATEGY & VISUAL LANGUAGE
This was followed up by a Low-fidelity clickable, mobile first prototype using Sketch and InVision. Two rounds of testing was performed one during the low-fidelity stage and one during the high-fidelity stage. After each tests were conducted and analyzed, the prototype was redesigned to accommodate new findings. I presented high-fidelity prototypes to the team to agree and sign off on.
CHALLENGE 1
The business had a language of their own to describe tickets and orders. The customers used another language. I had to bring up that discrepancy to my director, she brought it up to the stakeholder. With the help of a business analysis we came up with a consistent customer language was used on the customer portal.
PERSONA RESEARCH
I created these personas for a way to model, summarize and communicate research about the people I observed in the one on one customer interviews. I depicted three specific people, Hank, Edward and Anna. Each persona represents a significant portion of people in the construction world and it enabled me as the UX designer to focus on a manageable and memorable cast of characters, instead of focusing on thousands of individuals.
HANK
Superintendant
EDWARD
Project Engineer
ANNA
Accounts Payable
Define
ONE ON ONE INTERVIEWS
Sat down with 12 customers, each one was one of the 3 personas. Had a conversation about their business but followed a set of questions. These are the top 4 problem statements that I had to solve for.
I WOULD LIKE TO ORDER ANY TIME
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
Place an order online, anytime, day or night. Luck Stone associates will confirm the order and ensure accurate delivery.
LIKE TO KNOW WHEN MY ROCK WILL BE DELIVERED
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
Run jobs more efficiently with access to real-time truck tracking and the ability to drop pins in exact delivery locations.
I WOULD LIKE TO MANAGE MY ACCOUNT
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
See the accounts with ease with the ability to download digital tickets, review invoices and pay online to take advantage of early payment discounts.
I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ACCESS TO THE PRODUCTS ORDERED
I can easily access product testing results to confirm quality and support project designs.
I can easily access product testing results to confirm quality and support project designs.
CHALLENGE 2
Business only wanted me to do one session of user interviews. I created an online survey that refined on topics from the user interviews feedback and it helped us focus on three personas and the prioritization of the features. We got 300 responses from that survey. That quantitative analysis added to qualitative analysis gave me more data to identify and inform my design solutions. I learned to face the challenges, find solutions to gather information that we need. Now I am more mature in my skills and knowledge.
Ideate
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
From gathering all the UX research an Information architecture (IA) needed to be mapped out. IA focused on organizing, structuring, and labeling content in an effective and sustainable way. I used atomic design principles to break down the requirements for each feature. Focused on just four page types, one with 4 card components, one with a search / filter component, one with a static content area and one with a dynamic content area. The architecture of the product grew substantially, as more features and pages were added to the whole experience.
UX CONCLUSION
I concluded that customers ( the 3 personas ) wanted to see past and future order information clearly, needed to order rock for that day or the next day, and needed to check up on the delivery of the rock so their work site can prepare. I presented my research summary to the team.
MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT (MVP)
Team decided to focus on these features first.
ORDER'S TODAY
ONLINE
ORDERING
TRACK ORDER
Ideate
VISUAL THINKING ON PAPER
In order to help understand the ways the user can make decisions and choose a path; I mapped out multiple design options and workflows on paper. Following the "Design Thinking" methodology, I was sketching in the ideation phase, looking over the research again and empathising with the user continuously in a loop. In doing so, it helped me to understand the particular touch points the user will experience. My goal is to catch bottle necks and minimize inconvenient clicks, and highlight opportunities where the user can have a better experience.
Testing gray scale wire frames
A
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B
After testing the options with users I concluded the accordion that has the grouped purchase order was the one ( A ) to put into a hi-fi prototype. Bottom menu was not in the Angular JS framework so I had to but that in the Hamburger menu. Finally, we introduced statue notification, the customer wanted an alert is the order has been completed, canceled or in progress.
Prototype
Online Ordering, Clickable wireframe prototype
Sample of Online Ordering wireframes that was used in user testing phase. Go there now.
VIEW Hi-fi PROTOTYPE ORDERING
Final designs
Hi-fi PROTOTYPE DASHBOARD
Results
RESULTS
Oct 2020 was a successful launch of Job Sight.
The company continued beyond the MVP that I helped with and continued to create customer experience which they branded Job Sight.
Since launch there has been a gradual incline of all ordering done online, resulting in a 100 year-old change of business from traditional customer call in orders to a digital experience. Luck Stone is then sending more stone, so that’s good for profit. Customer feedback is that they are very satisfied, because rock is getting to their job site when they want it to be delivered. So their crews are more efficient. They’re prepared and ready for it.
CUSTOMER RESPONSES
Natalie Kruty,
Controller for GTR Turf Inc.
“Luck Stone is the only one that offers a digital experience with the versatility we need. We’re able to quote, check on orders, review jobs, pull up invoices, pay those invoices and get the job costing, all in one place.”
Tracy Clatterbuck,
Office Manager for Piedmont Construction Co.
“This platform spoils me. It’s so easy and user friendly. When I get a call asking for a time to pick-up a load, I check while I’m on the phone. I can see exactly what time slots are available, and I’m able to schedule it in that moment with full confidence.”
Andrew Cox,
Assistant Project Manager at Faulconer Construction Co.
“Luck Stone’s mobile ordering platform made it easy to specify exactly where stone was needed on our jobsite, which was critical because the site had significant access limitations. I would recommend Luck Stone’s mobile ordering to anyone who wants rapid insight into their product usage on site rather than having to wait to get back to a computer.”