Overview

Amber Waves Farm is a working farm, market, and restaurant in Amagansett, NY.

Amber Waves grows vegetables and sells them to local restaurants in New York.

I was tasked with improving their wholesale ordering app to create a simple, streamlined process for the general user and for the employees on the farm.

How will improving the wholesale ordering process contribute

to business goals for Amber Waves Farm?

Stakeholder Interview

We wanted to learn more about the current process, challenges, and business goals from Amber Waves employees, so we could better understand how to create an effective solution.

We conducted a stakeholder interview with Farm & Wholesale Manager, Isabel Milligan, to learn more about business goals, current challenges, and contraints.

What did we discover?

01. Success

According to Isabel, success looks like a redesign that allows the user to understand what is currently available and be able to customize their orders solely through the app.

02. Current Challenges

Users are writing emails/texts outside the automated system, specifying additional preferences on their orders.
Users are ordering at all different times, and it’s hard to keep orders tracked and organized.
Isabel is inundated with additional requests, which creates more work for her.
She is struggling to integrate all new requests and relay them to the farmers for proper harvesting.

03. Rewards

Improving the existing app will create a more time efficient system, saving Amber Waves Farm money from extra hours worked.
By integrating new solutions into the online ordering platform, it will lower human error.
By introducing new elements, such as promoting produce that’s set to expire, they can increase revenue/reduce waste.

04. Constraints

The new design will need to work with the existing interface, in order not to confuse users or have them relearn the ordering process.

User Interviews

We then moved on to conducting user interviews, to further understand how customers place their orders, and their specific goals when doing so.

One of the biggest challenges for Amber Waves is that orders and requests are sent through texts, emails, and other alternate channels. This makes processing orders difficult and scattered.

We reviewed some text and email correspondance from our client to understand some of the requests being made by chefs and customers —>

Additionally, we conducted an interview with an Amber Waves client to dive deeper into some of the needs and preferences chefs have when placing an order.

We asked about some background, how they place orders, and some of the important aspects of ordering effciently and accurately.

Persona

From our research, we were able to define a user persona, highlighting key needs and goals in the wholesale ordering process.

How might we make placing a wholesale order

more accurate & efficient for Amber Waves customers?

Paper Sketching

Here are 3 features + concepts that I began working on to support users’ needs:

Specification Feature on PDP
Substitution Feature on PDP
Previous Order Feature on Homepage

Specification Feature

The Specification feature is a drop-down menu feature that allows the user the option to specify particular characteristics they desire for their menu, like size, color, and ripeness.

This feature:

Helps the manager from having to answer emails/texts, saving her time/money.
Helps user define their preferences all in-app, saving time.

Substitution Feature

The Substitution feature allows the user to easily substitute items when their desired item is out of stock. The items suggested for substitution are based off of data from previous orders, similar items, and also items that may soon expire.

This feature:

Helps the user fulfill an order
Helps the business sell items that may not have been chosen
Keeps order tally from decreasing
Reduces waste

Past Order Feature

The “Past Order” homepage feature allows the user to quickly go to a previously placed order, and:

reorder the same things
reorder same things with quantity modification
delete some of the items in the order
add items to that order.

This saves time for the user when having to reorder items that are used regularly.

It also saves time for the farm by eliminating any questions on previous orders that may arise.

Metrics

Two months after launching the new design, we were able to gather the following metrics:

Improved Ordering

92% of the customers we surveyed rated the app update a 9 or 10 (10 being the most improved) when asked if their overall ordering experience improved.

Sales Increase

Overall produce sales increased by 14% since implementing the substitution feature.

Amber Waves Farm

UX Design

My Role

Timeline

Tools

Stakeholders

Overview

Amber Waves Farm is a working farm, market, and restaurant in Amagansett, NY.

Amber Waves grows vegetables and sells them to local restaurants in New York.

I was tasked with improving their wholesale ordering app to create a simple, streamlined process for the general user and for the employees on the farm.

How will improving the wholesale ordering process contribute

to business goals for Amber Waves Farm?

Stakeholder Interview

We wanted to learn more about the current process, challenges, and business goals from Amber Waves employees, so we could better understand how to create an effective solution.

We conducted a stakeholder interview with Farm & Wholesale Manager, Isabel Milligan, to learn more about business goals, current challenges, and contraints.

What did we discover?

01. Success

According to Isabel, success looks like a redesign that allows the user to understand what is currently available and be able to customize their orders solely through the app.

02. Current Challenges

Users are writing emails/texts outside the automated system, specifying additional preferences on their orders.

Users are ordering at all different times, and it’s hard to keep orders tracked and organized.

Isabel is inundated with additional requests, which creates more work for her.

She is struggling to integrate all new requests and relay them to the farmers for proper harvesting.

03. Rewards

Improving the existing app will create a more time efficient system, saving Amber Waves Farm money from extra hours worked.

By integrating new solutions into the online ordering platform, it will lower human error.

By introducing new elements, such as promoting produce that’s set to expire, they can increase revenue/reduce waste.

04. Constraints

The new design will need to work with the existing interface, in order not to confuse users or have them relearn the ordering process.

User Interviews

We then moved on to conducting user interviews, to further understand how customers place their orders, and their specific goals when doing so.

Additionally, we conducted an interview with an Amber Waves client to dive deeper into some of the needs and preferences chefs have when placing an order.We asked about some background, how they place orders, and some of the important aspects of ordering effciently and accurately.

Persona

From our research, we were able to define a user persona, highlighting key needs and goals in the wholesale ordering process.

How might we make placing a wholesale order

more accurate & efficient for Amber Waves customers?

Paper Sketching

Here are 3 features + concepts that I began working on to support users’ needs:

Specification Feature on PDP

Substitution Feature on PDP

Previous Order Feature on Homepage

Specification Feature

The Specification feature is a drop-down menu feature that allows the user the option to specify particular characteristics they desire for their menu, like size, color, and ripeness.This feature:

Helps the manager from having to answer emails/texts, saving her time/money.

Helps user define their preferences all in-app, saving time.

Substitution Feature

The Substitution feature allows the user to easily substitute items when their desired item is out of stock. The items suggested for substitution are based off of data from previous orders, similar items, and also items that may soon expire. This feature:

Helps the user fulfill an order

Helps the business sell items that may not have been chosen

Keeps order tally from decreasing

Reduces waste

Past Order Feature

The “Past Order” homepage feature allows the user to quickly go to a previously placed order, and:

reorder the same things

reorder same things with quantity modification

delete some of the items in the order

add items to that order.

This saves time for the user when having to reorder items that are used regularly.

It also saves time for the farm by eliminating any questions on previous orders that may arise.

Metrics

Two months after launching the new design, we were able to gather the following metrics:

Improved Ordering

92% of the customers we surveyed rated the app update a 9 or 10 (10 being the most improved) when asked if their overall ordering experience improved.

Sales Increase

Overall produce sales increased by 14% since implementing the substitution feature.

Less Messaging

Isabel calculated a 90% drop in direct text messages from customers.

Isabel is a much happier and less stressed manager!

Additionally, we conducted an interview with an Amber Waves client to dive deeper into some of the needs and preferences chefs have when placing an order.

We asked about some background, how they place orders, and some of the important aspects of ordering effciently and accurately.

The Specification feature is a drop-down menu feature that allows the user the option to specify particular characteristics they desire for their menu, like size, color, and ripeness.

This feature:

The Substitution feature allows the user to easily substitute items when their desired item is out of stock. The items suggested for substitution are based off of data from previous orders, similar items, and also items that may soon expire.

This feature: