How I fixed ~$750K annual leakage by challenging the simplest design request ever
My Role & Design Team
I was part of a great team of 15+ designers. We maintained a suite of admin products for a vast online marketplace, and I was responsible for the Invoicing department.
Approach & Challenge
Iteration Outcome
My team received an external request to add a field to the form. I conducted UX research that discovered a vast money leakage in the requester’s workflow, so we focused on helping them handle it.
The requester’s team implemented the first part of the solution, which mostly fixed the money issue discovered. Then, the global engineering team continued working on our idea of a more efficient update.
“Why do they think they need it?”
Empathising Phase
Product Background
When a Buyer wants to return some goods, he creates a return request on the marketplace’s website. It initiates the creation of the return order for the accounting dept. and the return invoice for the invoicing dept. So the accounting team could charge the Seller for money back and return money to the Buyer.
Initial Design Request
Every time the Customer Support (CS) team manually ask the Invoicing team to create a Return Invoice when the Seller confirms he received the goods back. They assume the mistakes in manual communication with the Invoicing team recall the issue of missing invoices.
That’s why they asked us to add a field such as “goods delivered” to the return invoice page so that they could do it independently.
“How should it work if we implement it?”
Research Phase
End-users Interviewing
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Unexpected Discoveries
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“Can we settle the core issue instead?”
Ideation Phase
Product Brainstorming
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Options Comparison
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“When and how can we implement it?”
Cross-dept. Decision-Making Phase
Quick CS Workflow Fix
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Future Integration Idea
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“Does it work as expected in real life?”
Outcome Estimation Phase
Quick CS Workflow Fix
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Future Integration Idea
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“Be brave to ask why and how before designing anithing”
This case taught me that even simple requests should be questioned. As a responsible designer, I must ensure my solutions are based on solid understanding, allowing me to effectively support engineers.