Process Design
and Employee Experience

Design of an internal platform for company employees responsible for organizing and categorizing the information of the products listed on the website.

Context

I joined a team whose mission was to redesign the experience of organizing and categorizing products (a task manually carried out by an internal team of 200 people) listed by sellers on Mercado Libre. The main challenge was to transform a complex daily process into a more intuitive and pleasant experience, optimize work times, and improve both the quality of the product catalog and the shopping experience for buyers.

Non-participant observation

We began the research with visits to the teams’ offices. At first, we only observed, and later we started interviewing some of them. This approach became the foundation for understanding the problem we wanted to solve. That’s how we identified the first pain point: the tools they used were complex, slowed down their work, and created both professional and personal frustration in their daily routine.

Collaborative ideation and remote design

After this diagnosis, we facilitated ideation sessions between the digital product team (our team) and the users—we wanted them to take part in the solution. This allowed us to find common ground between their needs and business and development requirements.

We started sketching early ideas, but we ran into a major challenge: our team was split between two countries, and at that time Figma didn’t exist. After some searching, we found a tool that allowed us to create wireframes remotely and simultaneously: Moqups. This tool helped us test and discard ideas quickly, until we finally selected three design proposals to move forward into testing.

Validations

The first proposals were validated through “guerrilla” tests (black-and-white sketches on paper) carried out in the users’ offices. This allowed us to discard many concepts within a few weeks. As learnings became clearer, we refined the designs and moved from paper testing to interactive prototypes.

Backlog - listado de funcionalidades faseadas, creado en la definición del mvp. Las imágenes se encuentran desenfocadas para proteger la privacidad.

Rediseño - acceso a la herramienta: antes y después del proceso. Las imágenes se encuentran desenfocadas para proteger la privacidad.

Defining the MVP

Together with the development team, we defined a viable MVP that allowed us to launch a functional tool in a short timeframe. We agreed to release a design we felt confident about and continued iterating on improvements that would come in later phases.

The launch

A couple of months later, the tool was ready. We selected 10% of the employees to start using it, with the goal of addressing issues quickly and measuring the effectiveness of the new product.

Flowmap - con el que definimos la navegación del producto. Las imágenes se encuentran desenfocadas para proteger la privacidad.

MVP - Plataforma web con el que el equipo salió a producción. Las imágenes se encuentran desenfocadas para proteger la privacidad.

Learnings

This was one of my favorite projects because of the magnitude of its impact. Working remotely—with part of the design and development team in another country—was a big challenge. We managed to build strong online collaboration routines and a team dynamic based on trust and support.
Co-creating the solution with the people who would actually use the tool became one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had.

Process Design and Employee Experience