Reducing lost tools by bringing them into the digital age.
As part of a innovation push within Bosch to bring their tools business into the digital age they created the TrackMyTools initiative. They idea behind it was simple, construction sites often have little vision into where their tools are at any given time, often budgeting for massive amounts of replacement for a given project.
The Mission
TrackMyTools is a platform that allows construction sites to tag and track their tools giving managers reports and workers an easy way to check tools in and out of the site's closet. Bosch came to us to validate their idea with users and to help improve the design of their platform.
The project was split into two phases. The first phase I was responsible for design research activities including onsite feedback sessions about the tool as well as documentation of the journey.
During the second phase I synthesized the results and created design recommendations to improve their platform overall.
The search page was designed to empower workers on the construction sites to find answers to any of the questions asked of them. Filters included work site, type of tool, dates seen, and a general search box. In addition, the table detailed information about each tool and allowed the user to dig deeper.
The reports page allowed users to generate on demand visualizations about their tools. These visualizations could show them things like what percentage of their tools are checked out vs. in the storage closet vs. missing and not found on the work site.
With every new platform, a user's on-boarding and learning need to be taken into account. Time was spent into understanding which concepts were hardest for users to pickup and an FAQ format that worked as well for mobile as it did for desktop was designed.
A key part of our work was going onsite to various construction sites and tool warehouses to talk to our target audience. We learned about their daily workflow, what they thought of their first couple weeks with the platform and showed them new designs to gain understanding of their context and perspective.
Following our initial set of feedback sessions we mapped out the service to better understand who was involved at what touch points during activities surrounding equipment requests, equipment delivery, and tool checkout.
To better visualize the touch points where our solution could help improve our user's overall experience, we mapped out their journey and emotions during the various phases related to the Track My Tools workflow.
