VOLVO CE
Improving Volvo CE's Suggestion Submission Process
(Under construction)
Overview
Volvo Construction Equipment is one of the world's leading companies in construction machinery. My team was tasked by Volvo CE to research and develop a system that allows employees to make suggestions for improvements, facilitate and optimize workflows and further enhance safety routines.
Client
Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE)
Role
UX Researcher
UX Designer
Facilitator
UI Designer
Methods
Research
User interviews
User flows
Wire framing
Prototyping
Platform
Tablet
Tools
Miro
Figma
Sketchbook
Duration
8 weeks
Objective
Develop a digital system to streamline the suggestion submission process and increase employee engagement through gamification.
Challenge
Volvo CE's current analog process with physical boards and notes for improvement suggestions is inefficient and lacks structure. The aim was to design a system that is accessible to all employees, regardless of their digital competence, and that makes the process simple, engaging, and rewarding.
Goal
Understand the problem space, user needs, and current workflows.
Stakeholder & User Interviews
We began by interviewing Volvo CE stakeholders Anne and Lars to understand the factory's challenges and opportunities. Later, we conducted user interviews with a diverse group of employees, including production workers like Tirana and Leif, and team leaders like Daniel. Their feedback revealed key pain points:
- Time pressure: Employees struggle to engage with improvement processes due to their tight schedules.
- Lack of motivation: Existing routines fail to inspire participation in the improvement process.
- Digital competence: Employees vary significantly in digital literacy, from highly skilled to those with little experience.
Benchmarking
We drew inspiration from other services with gamified elements, such as Glint (used by parts of Volvo), Coop's loyalty app, and the Duolingo language-learning app, for effective use of points systems and engagement.
Problem Definition
Hypothesis: Digitalizing the improvement submission process and incorporating gamification will create a more structured, engaging, and efficient system, motivating employees to contribute consistently.
Key Research Questions
1.
How can we use gamification to encourage employees to submit improvement suggestions?
2.
How can we make the platform accessible and enjoyable for all employees, regardless of their digital skills?
Empathy Maps & Personas
We created empathy maps and personas based on the interviews to capture user motivations, frustrations, and needs. This process helped us better understand the diverse digital competences and varying engagement levels among the workforce.
Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ)
We ran an LDJ workshop to brainstorm challenges and opportunities. This helped us identify our core hypothesis—leveraging gamification and digitalization to improve engagement.
Identifying Pain Points
Based on our research, we identified the following pain points:
1.
Lack of meaningful incentives for submitting suggestions.
2.
Inefficient feedback and status tracking of suggestions.
3.
Lack of a user-friendly interface to guide employees through the process.
Crazy 8s & Concept Ideation
To generate a broad range of potential solutions, we employed the Crazy 8s method, sketching eight ideas in eight minutes. We refined the ideas through group discussions, focusing on ease of use, motivation through rewards, and intuitive design elements.
Flowchart Design
We created flowcharts to document the existing analog process and proposed digital workflows. This helped us map out the system structure and served as the foundation for our prototype in Figma. Each flowchart element translated into a frame within the prototype.
Low-Fidelity Prototyping
We developed low-fidelity a prototype in order to test the basic interaction flow, ensuring the system was intuitive for users with varying digital skills.
