Standardizing Walmart’s associate experience mobile application

An end-to-end audit that lead to usability and wayfinding improvements, better app taxonomy, and redesign of key experiences.

 
MY ROLE

Senior UX designer 

COLLABORATORS

Responsible
Myself + 4 designers

Accountable
UX management

Consulted
Engineering, product, and business partners

Informed
Senior UX leadership & larger UX team, engineering team, product partners, and business partners

 
 
BACKGROUND

A better experience leads to exponential growth

There were 90+ work tool apps that Walmart store associates used to complete work daily. They had to regularly switch between apps and carry physical hardware to be able to complete tasks.

Me@Walmart was designed around the core needs of associates. It integrated functionality accordingly while sunsetting physical hardware.

 
 
CHALLENGE

How might we scale with integrity?

As core functionality was added to Me@Walmart at an exponential rate,

it became clear that we needed to take a closer look at what existed to ensure a unified end-to-end experience.

 
 
PROCESS

End-to-end audit to identify gaps in the experience

We did a deep dive of Me@Walmart to uncover opportunities for usability and wayfinding enhancements by…

Reviewing 100+ existing screens through the perspective of key associate personas.

Creating a robust sitemap of the existing app architecture

Comparing navigation patterns to internal and external UX best practices

 
 
RESULTS

Recommendations backed by core user mental models and UX best practices

 
INSIGHT

Access to tools is limited

While in the flow of daily work, it took associates 4+ taps to get to frequently used tools. 
RECOMMENDATION

Put core features within reach

We knew that Walmart associates use Me@Walmart on-the-go to support physical work.

By analyzing global navigation elements using Steven Hoober’s thumb zone map, we found that frequently used tools were ergonomically difficult to reach, and easily accessible navigation elements were linked to areas of the app that associates don’t need to use often.

We recommended that access to high frequency use tools should be in a persistent, intuitive, and ergonomic location.

 
INSIGHT

Wayfinding is not intuitive

Important content was hard to find because it was in a location associates didn't expect. 
RECOMMENDATION

Meaningfully reorganize the app

We proposed an enhanced architecture that organizes the app into intuitive “Hub” buckets based on associate mental models and behaviors we want to encourage with the bottom tab bar being the main access point.

Hub landing screens ensure associates stay informed about that area of their job and are able to act quickly on the most important actions.

 
INSIGHT

Screens are cluttered

Associates found it difficult to process and prioritize what's important. 
RECOMMENDATION

Standardize screen taxonomy

Establish screen levels that consider hierarchical navigation pathways and corresponding templates that use consistent layouts and components.

 
INSIGHT

Content is not meaningful

There wasn't a clear link between what associates saw and hwo it applied to them. 
RECOMMENDATION

Propose new designs for key screens

Redesign high traffic screens that launch into integrated experiences to be concise, intuitive, and easy to digest.