Film and Animation Institute, Lucknow
Film and Animation Institute, Lucknow
Film and Animation Institute, Lucknow
Enhancing the FedEx Control Center for Efficiency and User Engagement
Employer
FedEx via Wipro Digital
Location
Memphis, Tennessee (Remote)
Duration
December 2022 - Ongoing
Industry
Transportation & logistics
Project Brief
The FedEx Control Center is a digital platform where users can manage their shipping, tracking, and delivery tasks in one place. It provides quick access to shipment details, billing information, and rewards.
FedEx wanted to make the dashboard more personalised and easy to use by adding features that meet individual user needs. The goal was to simplify the shipping process, improve engagement, and create a better overall experience for users from different backgrounds.
My Contribution
UX RESEARCH
USER TESTING
USER INTERVIEW
USER PERSONA
ACADEMIC LITERATURE REVIEW
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
DESIGN APPROVALS
JOURNEY MAPPING
Problem Statement
Make the FedEx Control Center easier to navigate and more engaging by improving content discovery and providing a better onboarding experience.
Introduction: FedEx Control Center
The FedEx Control Center serves as a centralized dashboard for customers to track, manage, and optimize their shipping activities. This tool is designed to streamline operations for businesses and individuals alike by offering a range of features, such as shipment tracking, billing management, and reward program updates.
Key features of the FedEx Control Center include:
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Tracking and Shipment Overview: Users can monitor shipments in real time, access historical data, and manage shipment status. The platform supports visual insights into deliveries, including delayed, in-transit, and delivered shipments.
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Billing and Payment Management: The platform provides a consolidated view of account balances, overdue payments, and payment history, with quick links for managing transactions.
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Rewards Program Integration: FedEx Rewards offers incentives such as discounts, gift cards, and exclusive deals, enhancing user loyalty through tangible benefits.
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Sustainability Tracking: Users can view their carbon footprint associated with shipping activities, promoting eco-friendly practices and aligning with corporate sustainability goals.
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Support and Help Center Access: Customers can check the status of support tickets and track resolutions efficiently within the same interface.
Decoding FedEx Control Center
To address the problem statement effectively, my initial focus was on thoroughly understanding the FedEx Control Center and its ecosystem. This phase helped identify the scope of improvements and set a foundation for the design strategy. Here’s how I approached it:
Understanding the Platform
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UX Audit: I conducted a detailed UX audit of the FedEx Control Center to familiarize myself with the platform and uncover potential pain points and usability issues. This analysis provided a comprehensive understanding of the dashboard’s structure and areas for improvement.
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User Journey Mapping: By mapping the journey of different user personas, I gained insights into how users interact with the platform. This exercise revealed pain points, moments of friction, and opportunities for improvement in the onboarding and day-to-day usage.
Understanding the Users
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User Interviews: To understand the platform from the users’ perspective, I conducted interviews with a diverse group of customers. These conversations helped uncover their motivations, goals, and challenges when using the FedEx Control Center. The insights were invaluable in tailoring solutions to meet their specific needs.
Understanding the Business
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Business Goals Alignment: I worked closely with FedEx stakeholders to ensure that the proposed solutions aligned with the company's business objectives. This included understanding the product roadmap and identifying how the improvements could support FedEx’s broader goals of enhancing user satisfaction, driving engagement, and promoting loyalty.
UX Audit
Key findings from the audit included:
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Information Overload: Users were often overwhelmed by the high volume of information presented on the dashboard. Key features, such as shipment tracking and billing, were buried under less relevant content, leading to frustration and inefficiency.
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Inconsistent Multi-Platform Experience: There was a noticeable lack of consistency between the desktop and mobile versions of the FedEx Control Center. Users reported difficulties switching between devices due to disjointed design elements and interactions.
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Absence of Proper Onboarding: New users faced a steep learning curve due to the lack of guided navigation or onboarding experiences. Without clear instructions, users were often confused by FedEx-specific terminology and struggled to utilize the platform effectively.
Top Insights: User Interviews
The following insights emerged from these discussions:
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Personalisation Enhances Engagement: Many users expressed a desire for more personalised dashboard features, such as account-specific insights, tailored recommendations, or customisable layouts. These elements would make the platform feel more relevant and user-focused.
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Finding Key Features Is Time-Consuming: Discovering important tools, such as shipment tracking or billing, was not intuitive for many users. They reported spending unnecessary time navigating the platform to locate critical information.There was a noticeable lack of consistency between the desktop and mobile versions of the FedEx Control Center. Users reported difficulties switching between devices due to disjointed design elements and interactions.
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Real-Time Updates and Notifications Are Highly Valued: Users appreciated features that kept them informed about shipment changes, such as delivery delays or new tracking updates. Proactive notifications and real-time data were seen as essential for improving engagement.
FedEx's Business Goals
Here’s a summary of FedEx’s business roadmap for the platform during the project:
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Fostering User Engagement as a Habit: Develop features and workflows that encourage frequent interactions with the FedEx Control Center, turning it into a vital tool for managing shipping and account-related tasks.
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Redesign User Journeys for Value Discovery: Improve user flows to help customers easily uncover the platform’s most valuable features, such as shipment tracking, billing, and rewards, fostering meaningful interactions.
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Enhanced Communication to Boost Re-Engagement: Reimagine notification and communication systems (e.g., email or app notifications) to be more effective and well-timed, driving users back to the Control Center to manage shipments and explore value-added features.
Competitor Analysis of DHL and UPS
To better understand common challenges and opportunities in redesigning logistics dashboards, I reviewed existing research and analyzed platforms from industry competitors, including UPS and DHL.
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Seamless Integration with Tools and Systems: Platforms like UPS My Choice and DHL ProView excel in integrating various tools, allowing users to manage shipments, access billing, and track packages in a unified space. For the FedEx Control Center, seamless integration with tools like billing systems and customer support features became a priority to create a more efficient workflow.
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Improved Communication Features: Both UPS and DHL use real-time notifications and alerts effectively to keep users updated about shipments, delivery statuses, and account-related changes. Inspired by this, the FedEx Control Center focused on designing clear, actionable notifications and updates to improve communication with users.
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Simplified Navigation: Navigation in DHL’s online dashboard is intuitive, with clear categorisation and minimal steps to access shipment information or billing details. UPS similarly prioritises ease of use by presenting critical features prominently. These approaches emphasised the need for a streamlined, user-friendly layout in the FedEx Control Center redesign, ensuring users could locate key features without friction.
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Personalisation to Drive Engagement: DHL offers tailored content and services, such as delivery preferences based on user behaviour, while UPS allows users to customise dashboard views based on their needs.
User Scenario(Account holder): Meet John, a Startup CEO
Persona Description: John is the CEO of a tech startup and a tech enthusiast who values efficiency and transparency in business operations. His team shares one FedEx account to streamline shipping processes, using a single username and password for all transactions.
Goals:
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Monitor shipping costs and find clear advantages to using FedEx over other carriers.
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Stay informed of billing information and proactively manage account payments.
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Keep track of sustainability metrics to align with company values.
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Surface critical updates, like shipment delays or account-related issues, immediately.
Challenges:
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Relying on shared account credentials creates security and accessibility concerns.
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Lack of proactive notifications for critical issues, like expired credit cards or urgent shipping exceptions.
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Navigating multiple tiles to gather all relevant shipment and billing information efficiently.
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Limited options to visualize and compare sustainability performance over time.
Motivations:
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Quickly access critical information like shipment statuses, billing details, and account updates without unnecessary navigation.
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Receive real-time, accurate insights on shipping costs, potential delays, and rewards, enabling him to optimise logistics for his business.
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Manage the shared FedEx account efficiently, with features like admin controls and personalised recommendations tailored to his role.
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Track and reduce the company’s carbon footprint, reflecting his commitment to eco-friendly business practices.
Current Limitations and Opportunities for Improvement
While the FedEx Control Center delivers on its promise of operational efficiency, several areas required enhancements to meet evolving user expectations:
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Lack of Personalisation: The dashboard lacked user-specific content or features tailored to individual needs, making it less engaging and harder to navigate.
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Content Discoverability Issues: With multiple features presented simultaneously, users often found it overwhelming to locate the most relevant tools or insights.
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Onboarding Gaps: New users, unfamiliar with FedEx terminology and dashboard functionalities, faced challenges in understanding how to effectively utilize the platform.
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Space Utilisation and Visual Design: The initial layout divided the screen into three sections, leaving tiles cluttered and reducing the effective use of white space. This hindered readability and usability.
Design Implementation
Redesign of the Hero Section
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The hero image and the "Tracking" and "Rate & Ship" components previously occupied too much space, limiting the visibility of important information on the breakpoint screen.
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Replaced the hero image with a sleek tracking bar and a compact "Rate & Ship" component to optimise space.
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The new design created a cleaner and more breathable layout, enhancing the visual appeal and usability of the FedEx Control Center.
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This redesign utilized the available screen real estate more effectively, ensuring users could see key information immediately without unnecessary scrolling.
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The changes significantly improved user engagement and overall navigation efficiency.
Personalized Welcome Tile
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Introduced a Welcome Tile to greet users based on the time of day (e.g., "Good morning, Priya"), creating a personalised experience.
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The tile displays the nearest FedEx location along with an option to find more locations, helping users quickly access nearby services.
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Includes the account number to assist users in identifying the current account, especially helpful for those managing multiple accounts.
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Provides a convenient option to switch accounts, enhancing usability and streamlining account management.
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This feature adds a personal touch and makes key information easily accessible, improving the overall user experience.
Grid System Redesign
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Reworked the grid system of the FedEx Control Center page to improve layout consistency and reduce cognitive load.
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The previous 3-column grid appeared cluttered and messy, creating excessive white space due to frontend coding limitations.
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Each row previously contained 3 tiles, which overloaded users with information, making it harder to focus on key insights.
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Replaced the 3-column grid with a 2-column grid, simplifying the layout and creating a more balanced, organised appearance.
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Introduced only two tile sizes:
1. 100% width tiles for prominent information.
2. 50% width tiles for supporting content.
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This redesign not only improved the visual hierarchy but also optimized the page's usability and aesthetic, ensuring a smoother and more intuitive user experience.
Error Message Redesign
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Redesigned the error messaging system to make it more informative and user-friendly.
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Previously, the error message was generic: "We cannot load this data right now. Please try again later." along with a refresh button, which lacked clarity and actionable options.
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Introduced tile-specific error messages that provide context and guidance for the specific issue: For example, in the Shipment Status Tile, the new error message states: "Your shipping information isn't loading right now. You can view all of your shipments or refresh this content."
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Added tailored action buttons alongside the error message :
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A "Refresh" button to reload the tile.
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A "View All Shipments" button to allow users to navigate directly to the full application, bypassing the error.
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This redesign ensures users can still take action, even when the tile doesn’t load properly, reducing frustration and improving overall usability.
Results and Impact
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User Engagement: Post-launch metrics revealed a 30% increase in dashboard engagement, attributed to the simplified layout and prominently displayed tracking and billing features.
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Reduced Support Calls: With users able to easily access shipment status and support ticket tracking, FedEx reported a 25% drop in customer service inquiries.
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Positive Feedback on Personalisation: User surveys indicated high satisfaction with the welcome tile and personalised account features, enhancing the sense of ownership and user-friendliness.
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Increased Reward Program Participation: The visibility of the Rewards section led to a 20% increase in program sign-ups, indicating that users were more engaged with FedEx’s offerings.
