Redesigning a knowledge center for technicians
Please note that this is a summary of my contributions to this project.
Role
Lead designer & researcher
Context
Learning Experience Team @ Amazon Robotics
Duration
June - Sept 2024
(3 months)
Skills
Contextual inquiry
User interviews
Evaluative testing
Workshop facilitation
Team
1 designer
1 project manager
Overview
Summary
I led a team-wide user research and knowledge center redesign initiative to support a large-scale content migration.
Problem
To meet the ever-evolving needs of technicians and their teams, large volumes of content had been added previously, causing it to become oversaturated and disorganized, highlighting its issues with searchability and scalability.
Outcome
I created, tested, and delivered low-fidelity mockups to my team's engineering partners, along with documentation outlining user research processes and insights.
My Contributions
Initiated user research practices
I created and distributed research and documentation plans across the team.
Drove wireframes through workshops
I led team-wide workshops to brainstorm, create, and align on designs for core flows.
Designed & coordinated testing
I created, analyzed, and reported concept testing activities/results for 12 users
Background
Context
While at Amazon Robotics, I worked as a Learning Experience Designer on the Learning Experience and Technology (LExT) team. We were responsible for planning, creating, and maintaining learning materials (documentation, videos, online courses) for over 10,000 maintenance technicians across robotic fulfillment centers worldwide. All learning content was housed on a Sharepoint knowledge center called Amazon Robotics University (ARU).
Target audience
The primary audience referencing our materials was maintenance technicians.
Research
Methodology
I created a research plan focused on gaining qualitative data on how the knowledge center fit into a technician’s work day. Specifically, I wanted to learn:
What types of content do technicians consult ARU for?
How often do technicians refer to ARU?
I assembled and distributed a study kit with instructions and support materials to 10 coworkers, whose roles ranged from program managers to technical writers.
We conducted 10 contextual inquiries and interviews across 7 different sites in North American and Europe. These sites were selected based on accessibility and site efficiency rankings
Afterwards, I led a workshop at a team offsite to discuss and synthesize our findings.
Discoveries
Insights
The most important discovery we found was that ARU is used more frequently at the beginning of a technician’s career when they first learn how to perform certain procedures. The current platform does not distinguish between technicians’ experience level, instead treating them as one type of audience.
The majority of training is still done through word-of-mouth.
Technicians bookmark specific procedures to save and easily refer back to.
Current content is lacking contextual information.
There is no mechanism to communicate content changes to the field.
Challenges and reflection
Target user group was difficult to reach
It was difficult to evaluate the wireframes with our intended user groups due to company policies regarding shift workers. At one point, we conducted a survey to gauge ARU usage; however, due to time and resource constraints, this was sent out to technician managers rather than technicians themselves. If I were to redo this project, I would dive deeper and explore alternative ways we could gather direct user feedback rather than rely too heavily on adjacent user groups.
Navigating differing opinions, learning when to escalate
Many team members and stakeholders had differing opinions on what the redesign should look like. Because this was a volunteer project I took on, I didn't realize that the lack of structure and resources would cause further churn amongst the team. This experience taught me that when there are many obstacles, try to zoom out to look at the bigger picture. Oftentimes, as with my experience, it could be the result of higher organizational/resource challenges as opposed to challenges with the project itself.