Coach, USA, a Tapestry Inc., brand had been working on the reconstruction and redesign of all of it's North American POS systems. I was brought on to replace the existing UX designer and see the redesign through its final 5 months.
The project immediately presented some exciting opportunities as well as perplexing challenges. Onboarding to a thoroughly conceived design system was tedious at first but offered a unique opportunity to test the Atomic Design capabilities of Sketch.
Coach's technology vendor held rigid technological constraints that affected all channels involved within the organization, not just design. Working with the vendor required keen and clear planning and communication, a golden opportunity for corporate soft skills exercise.
One of the best parts of working so closely with Retail Operations was the QA lab; a simulated Cash Closeout environment complete with countertop and mobile testing systems. I became a fixture there during those five months testing and QA'ing the UI builds.
The Back Office, Employee, and Cash Management pages had been put on the back burner by everyone, even the designers in their initial considerations for the design system. This offered me a unique opportunity to engage with Store Managers and to grow the design system to accommodate for these screens.
Based on feedback from the store managers, I was able to manipulate the existing design system to create a more legible and seamless Back Office process. By focusing the team's priorities on refining these screens (which were almost left out of the transformation) I was able to advocate for Manager's, in particular, to help ease painpoints in the close out and cash counting workflow.
I left Coach fully knowing that I kept a seat for the User at the table throughout my leg of the POS Transformation. Often times I had to champion UX in the face of seemingly unmoveable vendor constraints as well as those imposed by important Operation and Customer Experience executives. I got a bit of a reputation for speaking up for best UX and this allowed me to engage with and persuade key decision makers on a regular basis.
A few changes that we suggested and tested with users, like not hiding the search bar in a drop down, and supporting more B2B transactions by adding an Office or Business supplies category were ultimately implemented.