Waitrose – UX & UI Design – Supplier Portal

________

UX DESIGN LEAD
________

Waitrose & Partners is a chain of British supermarkets, which forms the food retail division of Britain’s largest employee-owned retailer, the John Lewis Partnership. Its head office is located in Bracknell, Berkshire, England. Waitrose & Partners has 353 shops across the United Kingdom, including 65 “little Waitrose” convenience shops, and a 5.1% share of the market, making it the eighth-largest retailer of groceries in the UK. They also export products to 52 countries and have locations in the Middle East.

In November 2018, I joined the project team working with Waitrose with the responsibility of leading the delivery of a supplier portal for the large supermarket chain. The challenge was to change the (mostly) offline and complex service and improve the ways of working off all involved on Waitrose’s time to market in a sustainable manner.

• Team work and stakeholders management
  Working with various members of the project team and the business to understand the business requirements for new features or enhancements with senior stakeholders and end users through face to face meetings., understanding any technical or process constraints, analysing any existing customer feedback and/or analytics, conducting research to understand the need better where possible (usually conducting desk based research and asking around without the ability to conduct conventional user research).
  

• Prototypes and Wireframes
  I also had responsibility for wire framing and prototyping concepts and designing digital products. Sketching early ideas, producing wireframes or prototypes to show journeys and interaction. Monitoring existing journeys and how this will affect the design ecosystem, working with the team (front-end developer, back-end developer, business analyst and SMEs) to ensure the best solution.

• Design System
  A complete Design System was created with a library of icons, font styles, colours, controls and interface modules – all within the Waitrose branding guidelines, aligning the final product with the brand. The library is easy to use and update, speeding up the process of changes and creating new screen designs. 

• Exploration of the problem or opportunity
  Seeing what is possible but also what is most realistic/fitting for the business and current platform setup. Exploring how the solution will work for however the customer decides to interact with the supplier portal.

• Testing ideas
  Depending on timeline and budget, this could be user research in a variety of forms from usability testing to online surveys, but is usually quick guerrilla testing with colleagues who aren’t close to the subject.

• Buy in and sign off
  Presenting UX and design to both internal teams and the business, from exploration stage to final sign off. Collating and balancing UX and design feedback from stakeholders with different priorities, as well as internal team  and coming up with solutions that meet these needs without compromising on a positive user experience.

• Regular check ins during build
  To ensure UX and design alignment.