Understanding Lean Product Management and How It's Applied to Product Design

In 2020, Eleken team started working on UX design for TendrX, a freight tendering platform. This is how we dived into the world of logistics. Despite being such a conservative industry, the logistics industry gives lots of space for innovative software solutions. Thanks to technological advances, freight management has become much more efficient than it was decades before. Yet, the situation is not perfectly smooth.

During the pandemic years, the logistics industry has gone through big growth interlaced with big challenges. Increased volumes, lack of drivers,  supply chain vulnerabilities… And the list goes on and on. In this article, we’ll cover some of the current problems of the logistics industry and how digital solutions can help with them.

Lack of trust between carriers and shippers

How much do relationships between the parties weigh in a tender-based business? In the times when everything is automated and managed through online platforms, we assume that these relationships have lost their importance. Now that shippers can create a tender and set a deal without making a single call, how can relationships be a problem? Well, while automation formalizes those personal contacts, it brings new challenges.

People try to “hack” tender platforms just like any other system. To get more profit, carriers bid for tenders with lowered prices and then try to raise them when they win (unfairly). Responding to that, some shippers pick more carriers than they need and ultimately cancel agreements with the “extra” ones.

Naturally, there is a mistrust building up between the two sides. Fights for tenders ruin relationships between shippers and carriers that otherwise could have grown into fruitful collaborations. Good relationships become crucial when shippers need to contract carriers on a regular basis for a stable supply chain or when there is an urgent need for a transit that leaves no time for tenders.

We’ll get back to this issue later, but now let’s take a look at the others.

Ecology

Is there any conversation of 21st-century industry problems that can be complete without mentioning ecological issues? This one is not an exception. Transportation accounts for 21% of all CO2 emissions, and freight contributes to around one-third of this amount.

The freight industry is one of the most significant sources of contamination in the world, but at the same time, humanity hasn't yet found a way to live without it.

There are various ways of addressing this problem, but the solution that is most likely to become adopted by logistics companies is the one that does not require an extra expense.

One of the most logical ways of decreasing emissions for the logistics industry is optimizing routes and filling empty return loads. Optimization has a lot more to it than just finding a shorter route. For example, UPS once found that avoiding left turns saves time and fuel. Since then, UPS drivers almost never turn left, even though sometimes it means taking a longer way.

To find the best route for numerous trucks, you need a more complex solution than Google Maps. Freight management systems use smart algorithms to find the best option. Some of them put sustainability as a central objective. For example, Greenplan calculates how the efficiency of shipment changes not only depending on the route, but also depending on the departure time.

Prices

The prices for fuel create tension even within world politics, but the logistics industry is even more sensitive to it. Nowadays when standards for delivery are rising and people get more and more used to “free delivery the next day”, similar processes are going on in the world of big freight. Both shippers and carriers are under the pressure to lower the prices while making the delivery faster.

Whenever a shipper places a tender, they receive only one quote from each carrier. They remain blind regarding the price dynamics. This insight resulted in Uber Freight introducing a new feature, Lane Explorer. This tool allows shippers to see what are the market-based rates on their lanes not only on a given date but also two weeks in advance.

Such a simple idea was realized with an elegant UI solution: the calendar with rates reminds us of the rates calendar that we see on flight booking websites: you can see which day the prices go lower.

As we can see from this example, digital solutions try to fight the above-mentioned issues by any means. Logistics management is well suited for automatization, as little improvements in the workflow can make a big (and easily measurable) difference in the overall company performance.

Here are a few pieces of advice that we can give to those who aim to improve user experience in logistics products, such as freight management systems (FMS), tender platforms, and so on.

Make communication between distant agents smooth

Logistics have experienced all the difficulties of remote work long before the rest of the world in 2020. In the freight industry, managers have to organize the work of warehouses located in different states and coordinate numerous drivers that are constantly moving all around the country or a continent.

To improve communication between these parties, many freight management systems now connect their drivers with GPS to a big network and give the managers a real-time view of the shipments. From the design point of view, this means that software needs to be usable not only on a big screen, but also on mobile or tablet directly from the truck. For instance, Optimise logistics, as well as many other FMS, have mobile versions of the app apart from the desktop one.

Collect and analyze data

The visualization of each truck’s route gives us an illusion of control. But then, what can we do with all this information? How to understand the efficiency of all the elements of logistics business when they are spread all over the country or world?

Logistics is all about optimization, and to make thoughtful decisions shippers have to analyze loads of data. Freight platform Convoy provides their clients with huge amounts of data, structured and analyzed. The dashboard of Convoy shows a range of facilities metrics, such as volume, incidentals, and median dwell time.

All this data can be filtered to highlight the most problematic ones, or shown in an elegant scatter plot that shows how the volume of facilities relates to final incidentals. Diving deeper into the masses of information gathered by Convoy, the shipper can find the causes of the incidentals and take measures to prevent them.

Tailor to different kinds of freight

When trying to automate as many processes as possible, it is easy to forget that the cargo is not only measured in weight and volume. There are many requirements for transportation conditions that vary depending on the kind of freight. Some need a special temperature regimen, others — extra protected containers, and so on.

With a large amount of freight procurement software on the market, some companies make customized logistics solutions. For instance, Shipsta, a freight procurement software, focuses on pharma, chemistry, and automotive industries. For clients who need something more specific, they would adapt their services for an additional fee.

Learn from real clients

As you already know, procurement management is not a “competition-free” niche, so there is no sense in building another platform that would be a little different from the others. However, when you are aware of the problems that clients face, you can create something that helps solve them better than the competitors do.

Let’s take as an example FreightTender. This is a platform for management of the whole tendering process, from freight sourcing to validating tender data and processing transactions. This product had seemingly everything that shippers and carriers needed for their work. However, there were some moments in this process that needed improvements.

That is how the idea of TendrX was born: a platform that helps shippers and carriers get to know each other and establish initial contact. This product is addressing the problem that we have mentioned previously, the lack of trust between the two, and provides an advanced logistics solution to it.

This platform complements FreightTender: before placing a tender, shippers make information requests to carriers, see their experience, working conditions, and so on. Based on this information, they shortlist the ones that seem more reliable and can invite them to participate in future tenders.

All the trusted carriers can be grouped, so that in the future, you can easily reach the ones that you can contact for a specific type of freight, for example.

TendrX aims to build relationships between carriers and shippers. How do people build relationships in the 21st century? Correct, through social networks. We didn’t have the ambition to build a new Facebook in the world of logistics, but we used the newsfeed structure so that users feel engaged.

To learn more about logistics solutions, read TendrX case study.

Invest in good UX

This advice works for logistics as well as for any other sector. However automated the processes are, human work is a key element. And to make it efficient, we need, you guessed it, good user experience.

Before you start developing a logistics solution, think about people who will be using it and how the product can make their lives easier. Want to talk about your logistics project? Contact us and let’s see what we can make together!

Although many people believe that designers love creating aesthetic images, what designers love most is finding a solution to a problem. Our UX design agency is focused on this: solving problems that the product team faces.

One of the key responsibilities of a product owner is to organize the work of designers and developers to make great products. Design can help achieve the main product owner’s goals and objectives. Today we’ll show how exactly it can be done with examples from our experience.

Let us tell you five stories about our clients to show you how design helped them at different stages of the product lifecycle – from discovery to redesign.

1. Figuring out what needs to be built (product discovery)

A typical startup founders garage band looks nothing like a balanced product team. Designer, researcher, engineer, product manager, owner, busyness analyst… No, a typical startup can consist of two engineers or one manager, or just one passionate professional who has a great idea.

In the case of Haven diagnostics, the founders are a physician and data scientist, and a developer. They had to perform the role of product owner without having all the experience and background needed. With our designer Aleksandra, they went through the stages of product discovery that otherwise might have been overlooked.

Haven diagnostics is a product that helps companies make office spaces safe and compliant with state regulations. It surged during the pandemic and needed to find its place in the dynamic situation.

We started with competitors’ research and went on to learn the needs of potential users. It was all on the virtual whiteboard: user pains, user goals, user questions, and insights. We found out that scheduled collaboration in the office and hybrid work schedules can fix some of the issues related to remote work efficiency and workplace safety.

Next, we conducted a two-factor analysis, trying to evaluate the desired features with two scales: difficulty and value. For a new product, it is crucial to avoid the desire to include all the functions and focus on the most effective and feasible.

The final stage of our brainstorming was developing a value proposition. We used Dr. Alexander Osterwalder’s Value Proposition Canvas. This tool helps to see customer pains and gains and the ways that the product can relieve those pains and be useful for people. It shows clearly how value proposition relates to the customer profile.

All of this motivated founders to conduct interviews with their customers to analyze the direction where the product should be moving. This is how founders/product owners got on the right pace of product design.

2. Building a prototype to show to investors

When you want someone to invest money in your project, the best you can do is to show that some work has already been done. Investors are visual animals, too, and quality mock-ups bring the pitch deck to the next level. Seeing one prototype is worth one hundred presentation slides.

Tromzo is a security app that helps find vulnerabilities in code. Similar to the previous case, the founders were developers who had to become product owners at the prototype stage when the team size did not allow for product owners.

When Tromzo founders came to us, all they had was the code. Together, we worked on creating a visual look of the pages that would make the product appealing to the investors. The main challenge was the time: we had to prepare it in one month.

Since the founders reflected the profile of potential users, they could afford to skip detailed user research at this stage. The idea and code are worth gold, but a good design is what truly makes the presentation shine and attract investments.

3. Evolving a prototype into an MVP

After the initial prototype is done and some user feedback is collected, the next product owner’s goal is to develop an MVP that users would love. Under this goal, there are various tasks: create good user flows, make the onboarding smooth to avoid bouncing, and provide all the essential features that users need.

Designers can help a lot with these tasks by applying best practices and design principles to develop an efficient product.

Let’s look at Habstash, a product that makes the process of saving for buying a house easy and transparent. They came to us with a prototype and plans to turn it into an MVP.

First of all, we simplified the sign-up flow. The initial idea of Habstash product owners was to make it in a form of a calculator. It makes perfect sense for such an app, but when you try to put it all on a screen, it looks cluttered. Having to enter lots of information often makes users reluctant to sign up.

Still, a certain amount of information has to be entered at the initial stage to start the saving process. To make it look less overwhelming, our designer used the Wizzard pattern: it splits the onboarding into several pages, and the strip on the top of the screen shows how many steps are left.

In order not to lose those users who don’t have time or patience to enter all the information at once, designer suggested adding a “save exit” button. Users can leave their email addresses and continue entering information some other day. And Habstash can use these addresses to remind about unfinished sign-up.

To make users feel the process of finding housing more real, the map was added to the page house searching. And finally, one more little change that our designer suggested based on the findings of user research: the option “save with partner”. All of it helps to bring the Habstash as close as possible to a real situation of saving to buy a house.

4. Improving user experience through redesign

Behind redesign, there is always a clear goal that the product owner has to accomplish. If there is none, we would discourage clients from redesigning. Another common goal is to make it all fast. Not our favorite part of the work, frankly — but we have some tricks for fast results.

Here is a story of Ricochet360, a CRM platform, and cloud phone system. In the past, it took them a month to onboard a new client. Imagine all the fuss connected to that. Good CRM design can help shorten this period by making the usage easier.

To fit into a tight schedule, we suggested our client implement small improvements to the existing design first. Little pain, maximum gain.

Take a look at the “add a new lead” screen. There was a list of 31 fields for entering, without any sign on how to enter them correctly and which ones are essential. Small changes: asterisks on the required fields, tooltips next to each field, and instant error messages when the entered info has an invalid format.

After that, we decided to go on with bigger changes. The new screen showed only the essential fields, hiding the rest under the “Additional information” drop-down.

A similar process happened with the lead management screen. We noticed that the “delete all” button was accented, which may lead to the accidental deleting of leads. So, on a new screen, the “New lead” button was highlighted, and the Delete function was hidden under the three dots menu.

5. Shaping new features

Product owner’s roles and responsibilities includes prioritizing features and focusing on the ones that need to be developed first. Of course, this decision should not be taken by just one person. Designers help shape features and fit them into the product so that they are consistent with the overall style and are understandable to the users.

Meet our next hero. Enroly is a SaaS product that helps universities automate their student engagement processes. Their goal was to have 30% of UK universities using Enroly and expand to Australia and New Zealand by the end of the year 2022.

The new reporting feature was a key element that would help the product to become the leader in the market. To decide how this tool would look and work in the app, we did some brainstorming with all the product team: designers, developers, and product owners.

Reports are based on a number of metrics. In order to organize them, we defined four categories:

• Pipeline. Data about enrolled students, how many students applied, from which countries, how they cope with their arrival milestones, and so on.
• Market. Data about the industry and competitors necessary for market analysis.
• Agents. Data reflecting the work of student recruiting agencies. Helps to find out the best performing agencies.
• Team. All the information on internal team members, their plans, and progress.

The task of the designers was to find the best option for visualizing each piece of data and combining everything into an easily readable report. Here is an example of how it looks on the screen.

This dashboard works great for presenting big amounts of information. And modern design makes it stand out among other types of software for universities.

Conclusion

Product owners and designers work hand in hand. In fact, the product owner’s objectives often are the designer’s objectives, too. If you want to learn more about product owner/designer collaboration and how to assign responsibilities between them, read our article “An Overlap! Or? Product Owner vs UX Designer”.