Lowe's Vendor Gateway - Knowledge Center April 2024.pptx

April 2024

1. Lowe’s Vendor Gateway Usability Test Lowe’s Vendor Gateway UX Team April 2024

2. Outline Learning Objectives Pre-Task Questions Flow A Task Flow B Task A/B Designs - Concept Comparisons Q&A Resources

3. Learning Objectives What frustrations are our vendors experiencing as they navigate to, and interact with, our Knowledge Center? Are vendors able to quickly and easily locate the resources that they need?  If not, are they able to use our search feature to locate those resources?  Why/why not? How confident are our vendors in the resources that we provide?  How often does the information that we provide in the Knowledge Center actually answer those vendor questions or provide up-to-date guides? Have they looked up any FAQs or viewed our Training Clips?  How do they feel about those resources? What are the vendors' thoughts on the placement of each segment, the overall design of the landing page?  Structure updates? What features or resources could we add that would increase the value of the Knowledge Center?

4. April Test Plan Questions: ​ Test Method – Interview portion, design concept(s) rating and four flows. Mechanism – This will be done remotely via teams meeting.  There will be a simple click-through prototype that allows vendors to compare/contrast mid-fidelity design concepts, and to complete two task flows focused on findability. Recruitment  – Sample size of 5, minimum. Ideally, I'd like to have 10 total.  5 freshly onboarded vendors (within past 90 days) and 5 experienced vendors (6+ months experience in Lowe's Vendor Gateway). Must have previously accessed the Knowledge Center.

5. Script Beginning: Today we're going to be presenting varying scenarios, tasks and designs for Lowe’s Vendor Gateway—the one stop shop for managing your relationship and business with Lowe’s.  ​ ​ We are excited to have you collaborate with us as we work to make vendor-facing applications that will take some of the burden from your business. ​ ​ Have you ever been a part of a usability study?  A usability study is a study of a digital product or tool or website where the product is tested when in the hands of a user. What is being evaluated is the quality of the product not the user’s knowledge or inherent ability to understand everything about the product.  ​ ​ There is nothing that you can say today or share that is wrong.  We are looking for your honest feedback about our communication and our product. I did not design or build this personally….so there is absolutely nothing you could share that would hurt my feelings.  ​ ​ Preface:  We will be recording this session, so that we can capture all your insights and knowledge. Are you ok with this?  ​ ​ We will have various team members watching us live behind the scenes. They will not be speaking to you at all until the very end of the session when they might want to ask you some more specific questions about what you have shared. If at any time you want to stop, take a break, call it quits for whatever reason this is your right and we respect that. Do you have any questions for us before we dive in? ​

6. Pre-Task Questions Questions: ​ How often do you visit the Knowledge Center? Why? Was the Knowledge Center a valuable resource when you first onboarded?  Why/Why not? Helpful when they first began using the Knowledge Center, as a source of self-service?  Y/N? Why/Why not? Would you recommend the Knowledge Center to newly onboarding team members? Why/Why not? When you do navigate to the Knowledge Center, what's the most common problem or learning gap that you're trying to solve? Have you ever encountered an error or problem while trying to open a resource in the Knowledge Center? Have you ever encountered an error when saving (hearting) a resource to your "favorites"? How do you feel about the quality of resources (from documentation and FAQs to training clips) presented in the Knowledge Center, today? If you had to rate the design of the Knowledge Center today, on a scale of 1-10 (10 = best), what would it be?

7. Pre-Task Questions Questions:   What do you think is the biggest gap or challenge with how the Knowledge Center is currently presented , today ? If you could improve or change one thing about the current Knowledge Center, what would it be? Rating -  On a scale of 1-7, where 7 is easiest, how difficult is it for you to answer your own question or find a resource in the Knowledge Center? Have you ever looked for a glossary (for any acronyms) and if so, have you searched in the Knowledge Center? If not, do you think this is an appropriate location?   Would you expect to search for that term, or would you expect to see a clear callout to a general "glossary"?

8. Flow A – Find Document and Favorite 

9. Task A – Find the Lowe's Vendor Onboarding Job Aid and add it to your favorites in the Knowledge Center.  What did you expect to happen when you first started looking for the document? What parts of this task were the most/least important for you? How could we present our documents and resources in a more meaningful way? Is there anything you would change/add/remove to make this better for you? What was the hardest part about this task? Was there anything surprising or unexpected? Task A

10. Task A – Find the Lowe's Vendor Onboarding Job Aid and add it to your favorites in the Knowledge Center.  What did you expect to happen when you first started looking for the document? What parts of this task were the most/least important for you? How could we present our documents and resources in a more meaningful way? Is there anything you would change/add/remove to make this better for you? What was the hardest part about this task? Was there anything surprising or unexpected? Task A

11. Task A – Find the Lowe's Vendor Onboarding Job Aid and add it to your favorites in the Knowledge Center.  What did you expect to happen when you first started looking for the document? What parts of this task were the most/least important for you? How could we present our documents and resources in a more meaningful way? Is there anything you would change/add/remove to make this better for you? What was the hardest part about this task? Was there anything surprising or unexpected? - End when favorited Task A Shows in favs when hearted

12. Post Task A Questions Questions: ​ Would you use this redesigned Knowledge Center, today? What might keep people from using this? What, if anything, do you like or dislike? If you had a magic wand, what would you change? Does this feel like it was designed for you? Is anything missing? What adjectives would you use to describe the design for Task A? Is there anything we can remove from the design? Ease of Use Ranking (1-7)  1 is worst, 7 is easiest – How would your rank the ease of accessing the customization space, sorting through available information and selecting your picks? 

13. Flow B – Find Document and Favorite 

14. Task B – Find the  Lowe's Vendor Onboarding Job Aid  and add it to your favorites in the Knowledge Center.  What did you expect to happen when you first started looking for the training clip? What parts of this task were the most/least important for you? How could we present our documents and resources in a more meaningful way? Is there anything you would change/add/remove to make this better for you? What was the hardest part about this task? Was there anything surprising or unexpected? Task B 

15. Task B – Find the  Lowe's Vendor Onboarding Job Aid  and add it to your favorites in the Knowledge Center.  What did you expect to happen when you first started looking for the training clip? What parts of this task were the most/least important for you? How could we present our documents and resources in a more meaningful way? Is there anything you would change/add/remove to make this better for you? What was the hardest part about this task? Was there anything surprising or unexpected? Task B 

16. Task B – Find the  Lowe's Vendor Onboarding Job Aid  and add it to your favorites in the Knowledge Center.  What did you expect to happen when you first started looking for the training clip? What parts of this task were the most/least important for you? How could we present our documents and resources in a more meaningful way? Is there anything you would change/add/remove to make this better for you? What was the hardest part about this task? Was there anything surprising or unexpected? Task B 

17. Post Task B Questions Questions: ​ Would you use this redesigned Knowledge Center, today? What might keep people from using this? What, if anything, do you like or dislike? If you had a magic wand, what would you change? Does this feel like it was designed for you? Is anything missing? What adjectives would you use to describe the design for Task B? Is there anything we can remove from the design? Ease of Use Ranking (1-7)  1 is worst, 7 is best - How would your rank the ease of accessing the customization space, sorting through available cards and selecting your picks? 

18. A/B Ranking

19. Comparison View Now that we've discussed these different options, I'd like to quickly review both designs: View A  View B Which is preferred? View A - (Scale 1 to 7, 7 =best) Rate Design View B - (Scale 1 to 7, 7 =best) Rate Design

20. Post A/B Questions Questions: ​ On ranking of 1-2  (1 is best), how would you rank (order) the concepts? Concept A - Concept B -  What did you like (from each)?   What would you add that you did NOT see represented in any of the concepts? Is there any part of the current experience that you would want us to keep?

21. Post Test Q&A Questions: ​ UX Baseline Questions  - Could you please discuss the quality of the content (applications and support) that we are providing you in Vendor Gateway for you and your company to do your best work with Lowe's? Based upon the content that we are providing you in the Vendor Gateway how easy or difficult is your experience within the Gateway on a scale of 1-7 where 1 is very difficult and 7 is very easy--please elaborate on your ranking. 

22. UX Resources

23. UX Resources Dedicated Confluence Page – April Documentation Analytics and Concept Progress Board – Figjam Board

24. End