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    <lastmod>2021-11-22</lastmod>
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      <image:caption>Alpha is an anonymous title for this password protected project. This project is actually related to my research and design work on the order processing pipeline for my current company. Due to SEO and compliance concerns, I will not list my company name here, or the names of any research sources. I hope you understand!  If you find that frustrating, please feel free to reach out in person and I can gladly explain the project and my process verbally instead, while still protecting my current company. My Product Research and Product Design process: Research • Define the expressed problem statement, and the fundamental root problem if there is another layer beneath the initial problem statement. • Collect existing research surrounding the problem statement, and assess if it is adequate to have a holistic understanding of how to solve for the issue • Create plans for additional research, if needed. Keep roadmaps in mind and allot for what is appropriate • Analyze research (I love a good write up) and discover what needs immediate solving • Outline key learnings from the research, and prepare these learnings to fuel the design process Design • Begin with outlined key takeaways from performed research or existing research. If the takeaways are not adequate, reach out as much as possible for additional data. Be sure to completely understand the issues at hand. • Use the understanding of the issue at hand to ideate on solutions; ideate not just from a place of “problem solved”, but foremost from a place of “how can we help the user love this experience instead of feeling pain every time they have to use it”. Go for net positive, not just net neutral. • Explore UI options that are directly related to the problems at hand, and weigh the pros/cons of each approach. Do very rough and messy prototypes to feel through the adequacy of each direction • Refine prototypes with a best possible direction approach, and bring these refinements to Users, Product Managers and Engineers for testing and input on the feasibility of the proposals. • Use feedback from Users, PMs, and Engineers to continue refinement until the product has reached its highest potential to both solve for user pain points and introduce joy, and meets both technical and roadmap feasibility. Project: Solving requisition pains points! Problem statement: The paper requisition at [our company] serves an irreplaceable function, and is simultaneously a huge pain point across our customer base and internal operations. With consistently increased offerings, placing an order is becoming ever more complicated for the customer to understand, and convoluted for internal intake teams to capture accurately. The paper UI also struggles to fit new offerings in the interface, and our assumption is that new offerings are only going to increase. In addition to this, the current-day flow to update the paper requisition separately from online ordering and internal backend software creates product hiccups that delay our ability to release new diagnostic offerings, and often cause a temporary spike of errors during intake or order placement. The requisition’s layout is a problem, order placement complexity is a problem, and the flow of updating the requisition is a problem. This leaves the feeling of the requisition being a thorn in [our company’s] process, when what we actually have on our hands is an opportunity to leverage the requisition into becoming a brand asset that sets us apart from competitors who offer similarly outdated paper form UI and dense marketplace options. Research &amp; Feedback: We have access to Requisition and order feedback via [link omitted] Additional research should still be formulated and performed, but there is a wealth of anecdotal feedback from customers, internal teams, designers, and sales that support the above problem statements. Additional research is still being planned in the following formats: A survey sent to customer base and/or sales to collect pain points for customers during ordering placing process A survey sent to sales team collecting pain points on teaching customers how to place orders, both electronically and via paper A survey sent to Intake team collecting pain points on reading through and entering paper requisitions into the system Evidence &amp; Data: Listed below are both external comments emailed in from sales reps, and internal comments mailed between teams triaging order intake issues.   “The new requisition uses too much [company]-specific terminology and is laid out with too many choices”   "It looks like it [order detail] was missed because of the new requisition.  An incident will be documented...Just want this to be on our radar as we add more and more options on to our req form to make sure selections are entered correctly."    “I had a client that couldn't find the specimen requirements for the normal sample (blood and saliva)...[or] saliva collection instructions for patients also.”   “Customer Service does not have the bandwidth to add this [checking for missed req fields] into every outreach process.” Key learnings: What we can see from some of our above feedback, is the following: [Our company] relies on our customers too heavily to “understand” our lingo and options during the ordering process; we should aim to communicate offerings with ease and transparency, and avoid internal lingo during order placement The requisition is too dense, and the variety of options can leave the customer confused. We need to reduce visual density, and give context to our options during the ordering process The intake team struggles when new changes are introduced; however, this is internally attributed to the divergence between UI of paper requisitions and internal intake software (eg the paper req looks extremely different than Online Ordering, and that is the main assumed root of mis-alignment &amp; errors) Our clientele do not always know every aspect of order placement, even after they have been trained on how to place orders and given additional guidance. The paper requisition does not give easily accessible context to parallel aspects of order placement, such as sample requirements or how kit collection will work. We should increase transparency for parallel order placement steps on the requisition. Next Steps &amp; Outcomes: We are still outlining the most appropriate next steps, possible future extensions of this research, and the current/immediate plans for improvement. However, based on our current materials, the following next steps are proposed as solutions to begin alleviating paper requisition and order-placement related pain points for customers and internal teams. Straightforward to apply near term: Re-design the paper requisition to reduce visual complexity. Leverage the re-design to become a value-adding brand asset. Hinge the future designs to Requisition Service on [internal software]. This will create automated alignment between the Paper Req, Online Ordering, [internal software], and Order Confirmation PDFs - meaning updates to our requisition will apply across the board automatically, rather than occurring singularly on the requisition and then later again on each separate product. Design all our ordering experiences to match, so that both customers and intake team have aligned experiences irregardless of platform choice. This should reduce cognitive load spent trying to understand and notate divergent order placement processes for both parties. Audit and apply a re-write of our copy for the entire requisition form. This should increase transparency and give context surrounding test and specimen options - reduce [company] lingo to where it is “required” only, and use more broadly understandable and descriptive language wherever possible. Add a branded “Sync this kit to your order online” flow into kits, instead of a paper form. Although not specifically noted in our feedback per say, the paper requisition is an overall more cumbersome and less controllable format for order placement. A gentle push to shift customer usage towards Online Ordering would create more leeway in keeping customers using the correct form, reduction in the volume of old/outdated paper forms coming into the Intake team’s inbox, and also reduce the margins of error that occur with each divergent requisition update. This is also a more controllable brand opportunity and saves paper (we aren’t sure how many people use the printed req inside each kit) Difficult but should be considered for the long term: Guided ordering experiences online. One area we cannot solve as easily for is ensuring our customers understand all our offerings; this will likely become even more complex as we continue to develop additional algorithm offerings. Rather than expect our customers to fend for themselves or rely heavily on their sales reps to understand this, we should consider what a guided Online Ordering experience might be like (Think H&amp;R block). Other options could involve embracing tool tips as a way of educating customers about each test offering online.</image:caption>
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  <url>
    <loc>http://www.erikagangware.com/about</loc>
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    <lastmod>2025-05-23</lastmod>
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      <image:title>About - Hey there    I’m Erika, a Product Manager (&amp; prior designer) out to solve tough problems.</image:title>
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