Overview
After the shootings in El Paso, TX that affected hundreds of lives of our customers and associates, the CEO and President at Walmart wanted to take action. He was devastated when he was notified by other members of the leadership of what happened and even more so that they found out through Twitter what was happening.
He asked for a new system for the response on emergencies inside Sam’s Club and Walmart stores. This system would address multiple emergencies a store could potentially face ranging from injuries, fires, power failures, natural disasters/acts of God, robberies, and shootings.
Project makeup
Method
Qualitative & quantitative research, Personas, User journey, Site mapping, Prototyping, User testing
Qualitative & quantitative research, Personas, User journey, Site mapping, Prototyping, User testing
Duration
7 months
7 months
Team
Senior designer, Partner designer, Researcher, Product manager, Engineering staff
Senior designer, Partner designer, Researcher, Product manager, Engineering staff
Research
We visited the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Bentonville to understand what the day to day experience was like when an emergency is reported right now. And how they capture incidents inside their system.
Our findings resulted in multiple screens that the user would use to track and record information. It also required multiple inputs on many screen levels to create a ticket for an incident. The EOC would deal with numerous emergencies every day, leading to more significant time focused on ticket creation rather than the emergency itself.
Our findings resulted in multiple screens that the user would use to track and record information. It also required multiple inputs on many screen levels to create a ticket for an incident. The EOC would deal with numerous emergencies every day, leading to more significant time focused on ticket creation rather than the emergency itself.
Store and club visits
We decided to find out for ourselves what the emergency experience was like for managers and associates. We decided to visit multiple demographic stores and clubs to see what kinds of response they had for us.
5 Clubs, 5 Stores
Bentonville, AR
Concord, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Martinez, CA
Dallas, TX
Concord, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Martinez, CA
Dallas, TX
11 Managers
3 Associate mangers
4 Team leads
2 Asset protection managers
3 EOC associates
3 Associate mangers
4 Team leads
2 Asset protection managers
3 EOC associates
We walked through multiple clubs and stores to figure out what kinds of signages they used to convey emergency conduct. Each store and club would lay out their material differently. The only exception was the flipbook that we saw that was posted in every Club or Store.
Persona
When we interviewed managers from Walmart and Sam's Club, we realized that we were dealing with two different types of management styles.
Walmart managers are less available than the Club managers. Club hours are shorter than Store hours. They have a dependency on multiple managers and it’s the key reason why Stores had more of a playbook style. We also found out that they rotate managers at the Stores were more frequently.
Walmart managers are less available than the Club managers. Club hours are shorter than Store hours. They have a dependency on multiple managers and it’s the key reason why Stores had more of a playbook style. We also found out that they rotate managers at the Stores were more frequently.
User journey
Based on our personas we mapped out the user journey we started thinking about what were the most important opportunities that we could start looking into. The most important one was how to quickly notify associates.
MVP design solution
Get managers to quickly send out notification to associates, asset protection, market managers, leadership, and EOC when an emergency occurs.
Ever other aspect of the design would help support managers so that get could get information and they could provide additional information when time was available or follow-up could be ascertained through other means. We thought about how this product could be flexible and ridge as needed for each manager personas.
Design inspiration
One common thing that both stores and clubs had was the flip book. Based on this, we explored ways of having some kind of parity to a flipbook for emergency guide that all stores and clubs carry.
Application map
MVP Designs at launch
Based on the flipbook we started gathering some initial ideas on how to list out information but realized that it would overwhelming and too much. We looked at how to simplify the information to the most essential piece to notify associates.
Some designs required a bit more information as EOC didn't have much to go by. We looked at ways to balance the immediate action to notify and additional information where we could add it in. We also looked at customization and made listings of all emergencies based on the store's usage frequency they reported. Frequently used emergencies would be listed in the second column while the highest emergencies would be on top.
Iterative Design
Version 2 designs
We kicked off the next phase of ability to add in details to the emergency and update the status of the club from the app.
COVID-19
COVID-19 was a shock for us as we were working on launching to Sam’s Club. We were testing in 12 locations when the pandemic went into full swing.
Due to unforeseen circumstances. We had to switch gears and focus on adding new flows for COVID response and look into how to launch the product to all chains while in the testing period. To my surprise, we didn’t realize what all chains meant. It was accelerated to launch at all Walmart stores and Sam’s Club locations.
Takeaway
Dealing with an app like Emergency is not a small undertaking. It requires buy-in and accommodation from everyone from the organization. At each level, you need to clearly identify and adhere to all the technologies. The engagement from managers from both companies was amazing where they help define what their needs were from day one.
Even with some setbacks, we were able to say that the product was a success. Within a month we saw 87% adoption and use from both Walmart and Sam’s Club. Call volumes dropped drastically at the Emergency Operation Center and the focus was now pointed in the elevated reporting. Recently, the app was submitted for US pattent office and is pattent pending for internal emergency notification system and response.