Meijer help bot
At Meijer, I owned the project "Meijer Help Bot". This product was originally created to be a COVID-19 Info bot to put some relief on the call centers. It had a lot of potential to be more, and I took the project over to begin adding features and making the bot smarter. I hosted research, workshops, design thinking workshops to get feedback from the team, the users, and the developers working on this project with me.
As well as being the UX/UI designer on this project I also used SAFe Agile workflow to PI plan 10 weeks of work for the Meijer Help Bot, as well as managed the tickets and had recurring ceremonies with the developer & QA in order to release updates on time. I fully managed the project, as well as designed it.
Step 1 when I was assigned the project; re-design the foundational components of the bots to be easily added so as to not crowd the UI.
Architecture
With testing, we were able to create chips & what we call "chip paths" in order to create better flows for the user and chip categories based on the frequency of click. We used this information to make the chatbot smarter, and focus on the user's end goal. The difference between asking the user a series of questions to get to their goal, and choosing your own adventure. We were able to predict their end goals and actions more quickly. A smarter chatbot without using AI, just using architecture.
VISUALS
The redesign campaign for Meijer Help bot wasn't just about the back end architecture, we also wanted the front end to feel cleaner and smarter. My biggest goal was to create a foundational UI that I could be expanded on. We had a roadmap full of new features, but the chatbot UI became crowded with each new component. I took it down to the foundations and rebuilt it so it could be forever expanded on.
PI Planning
While at Meijer, I owned the chatbot project in terms of design and architecture but I also owned and managed the roadmap. For each PI I would write tickets using Azure & Miro in order to prioritize features and think about what was next for the bot. I wrote the tickets, efforted them out, and groomed them with the team weekly. We also used my tickets to write the developers' tickets and ensure I was always designing a sprint or two ahead of the developer and QA.
Copy
I worked with a copywriter at Meijer to update the copy and brand voice inside the Meijer Help Bot to make it more friendly, and fit with the Meijer brand overall. We created dynamic welcome messages based on the page the user would open the chatbot inside. We also implemented "small talk" into the bot, creating a more friendly and lively experience.
A before and after video