Context

Walmart Inc., the largest retailer in the world, has suppliers from all over the world procuring items to be sold in brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce channels. To help those suppliers do efficient business, Walmart has created an extensive tool known as Retail Link.

It is so vast that suppliers get confused about how to use various features and tools available within. To overcome this problem, a learning management system was created known as Supplier Academy.

Number of users

250K

Usage frequency

Daily

Context

Walmart Inc., the largest retailer in the world, has suppliers from all over the world procuring items to be sold in brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce channels. To help those suppliers do efficient business, Walmart has created an extensive tool known as Retail Link.

It is so vast that suppliers get confused about how to use various features and tools available within. To overcome this problem, a learning management system was created known as Supplier Academy.

Brief

Client - Walmart Inc. (via Tata Consultancy Services) - Fortune 1 company, world;s largest retailer

Project Type - Enterprise application, Learning Management System, new project

Role - User Research, Ideation, Prototyping, Interaction Design & Testing

Duration - Dec 2018 - Mar 2019

Location - Bentonville, Arkansas, United States

Design Tools - Sketch, Google Surveys

About the project

Retail Link® is an online hub for the data, documentation, reports, and special applications that suppliers use to manage their business with Walmart. Nearly 250k users from different supplier companies use Retail Link to manage their day-to-day business with Walmart. The Retail Link application is so vast and complex that users need to have a steep learning curve to use various features of the application. Various third-party companies train the users on how to use the Retail Link application. Walmart also has lots of training material that is not easily accessible to users. To resolve this issue, a separate Learning Management System to provide training to the Retail Link users.

Why this project was started

To fully understand why this project is urgent, it’s necessary to understand how bad the current situation is and how it is making day to day life of suppliers worse. The current platform had lots of docs that were placed at different sources. Suppliers were not able to get all the learning resources. To provide single stop learning materials accessible to the suppliers this project was started. The larger vision was to help suppliers to have a better business with Walmart which will create a win-win situation for everyone.

Empathise

To understand our customers interact with the Retail Link tool, I met few suppliers to understand the user behaviour, their goals & needs and pain points.


This was helpful in getting the insights about how important Retail Link tool is for them to do business with Walmart and what help they are looking forward to achieve the success.

Helpdesk / Previous Complaints / Feedback Data Analysis

I further collected some previous data from help desk team related to user complaints and praises.

This helped me a lot during the ideation phase to better address the goals, needs, pain points and oppurtunities

User Interviews

I again met with a few users to understand how they interact with the current learning materials in the portal.

This helped me to curate different types of learning content, positioning of the content, and information architecture

Project scope

Finally, here's a small fraction of how the research helped the project and how we plan to use it.

Defining the project’s scope: I proposed a complete Learning Management System to be created from which will include courses, learning plans, wiki courses, learners' profiles, and a backend system to create and manage courses and learners.

Wiki Articles

Wiki articles also known as quick articles are learning content for a specific topic with links to other related topics

Web-based Course

This courses contain wiki articles, videos, simulated trainings. Completing a course will give a basic idea about certain tool

Learning Plan

Special curated plan with handpicked courses to specialize in a certain business topic

Instructor Led

Fully delivered by Walmart Supplier Training team which covers in and out of many business topics necessary for a Walmart Supplier

Oppurtunitiy

Invent and Simplify

Based on my findings, I also proposed to incorporate paid in-person training sessions

How did this idea come up?

A lot of customers were already getting third-party training sessions. I frequently see a board about in-person sessions in my building, and thought, why can’t we do the same

User Journey

After finalising the content, as a next step, I worked on the user journey of this new tool.

This helps to see how customer interacts with the product, what the specific touch points.

Information architecture

Post user journey, I worked on creating the information structure

The focus was to -

Customers can find the learning content

Customers can navigate easily across screens

Customers can open and complete the course

Design Ideation

After doing the information architecture, the vision of the new product was almost clear.

One last step was the visualize our thought process

I started with some quick pen & paper mockups to conceptualise the design

Design - Whiteboarding

I collaborated with my stakeholders, product owner, and engineering team to do a whiteboarding session based on the initial pen & paper mockups

More ideas were generated for the visual design. Constraints were also highlighted.

Design - Wireframes

Design - Prototype

Home Page

Design Intent

Notice Board - Quick Company updates, new and featured courses

Quick Learning -
Segregated by Walmart Channels

Trending Courses -
To make sure what other customers are learning

Browse Courses

Design Intent

Search Courses by Topics -
Customer’s business needs

Search Courses by Length -
For Quick Learning

Search Courses by Type -
How much customer wants to learn

Impacts - Overall

Impact assessed on a unofficial suppliers' run and managed facebook community group

Impact - In-person Session

Customers are getting hooked on Retail Link in-person classes. NPS is really good.

During and post-COVID era, customers are missing in-person classes and are waiting for this to be resumed

Usage Metrics

Usage Metrics - Week 1

Key Design Wins

• High Traffic to New, Updated, and Featured Learning Materials

• Trending Now Articles are getting extra attention

Mistakes & Learnings

Negative Feedback

• Some customers reported that they are not able to quickly access the quick learning articles.

• Most of the time, it’s deeply hidden inside channels and topics.

• Searching Quick Article is not available

Putting Customers First

• I soon realised the mistake and connected with few customers

• Based on the insights, I updated the page layout

• For quick searching, I added a search box on quick articles page

Client testimonials

Why this project was started

Hi Roshni,

Thank you for flagging the issue.

Please find my portfolio here: Ankur Kumar Portfolio

You can also directly access the project case studies below:

• Project 1

• Project 2

Looking forward to our discussion today.

Best regards,
Ankur

Why this project was started

To fully understand why this project is urgent, it’s necessary to understand how bad the current situation is and how it is making day to day life of suppliers worse. The current platform had lots of docs that were placed at different sources. Suppliers were not able to get all the learning resources. To provide single stop learning materials accessible to the suppliers this project was started. The larger vision was to help suppliers to have a better business with Walmart which will create a win-win situation for everyone.

Why this project was started

To fully understand why this project is urgent, it’s necessary to understand how bad the current situation is and how it is making day to day life of suppliers worse. The current platform had lots of docs that were placed at different sources. Suppliers were not able to get all the learning resources. To provide single stop learning materials accessible to the suppliers this project was started. The larger vision was to help suppliers to have a better business with Walmart which will create a win-win situation for everyone.