Dealer Management: IdeaRoom
New customers were set up using spreadsheets, which were error prone and required in-person help.
What I did
The client wanted a web app that could error-check the data entry process. Two of the more complex aspects of the setup were deposit amounts and discount tiers.
After analyzing the data for existing clients, I suggested a single default set of discount tiers with a configurable override, since clients appeared to use a “standard” discount, and overrides in special cases.
Deposits also had a complex additive combination of percentages and dollar amounts that were tricky to get right.
Stakeholder Interviews
I verified that the single default deposit amounts with overriders was a good approach, based on how their customers thought about their users.
Discounts are set up periodically, with a schedule, and had multiple components that could be confusing to configure. We eliminated some of the more esoteric options and decided on a dollar amount or percentage for each of the two discount possibilities.
User Experience Design
Some of the design challenges for this project included:
For deposit amounts, how to allow the user to select an arbitrary number of data ranges that are all contiguous. I added new controls for deposit ranges that were intuitive, to allow clear overriding of default values and splitting of ranges.
How to make sure that the client had entered data that matched their intent, especially for discounts. To support this I suggested a Preview capability.
Making it possible to change the default deposit amounts early in the client’s setup, but later ensuring that the client does not unknowingly change it and mess up prices for hundreds of dealers. I suggested an extra warning message with very specific wording showing how many dealers would be affected.
Since the client was already using Material Design, this project skipped the wireframe stage and went directly to high-fidelity design.
User Testing
The client had a regular schedule of meetings with their customers and walked through the high-fidelity prototypes with them.
The project is ongoing, and we have discovered during the user testing that they needed multiple sets of discounts (one per website). I adjusted the design based on the feedback.