Starbucks SCT Center

A new Starbucks experience

With the investment and development in global roasteries that serve to be a hub in defining the Starbucks experience, an application was needed to manage the concepts and devices. This application needed to be adaptable to be scaled to future global reserves/roasteries and eventually to be used by all store locations.

My Contribution 

I was the sole designer on the team providing all design specifications and UX/UI solutions, as well as testing and iterative design within the agile workflow Including: Research, user testing, Interviews, sitemaps, heuristics, task analysis, use cases, ideation, iteration.

Where we started

This was a net new product for the company addressing the roasteries and reserves needs to manage their content in diverse environments where there is the possibility for high impact and visibility. Presently Starbucks partners were pulling from multiple tools to manage content in the flagship Seattle location. The process was defined by users tedious and time-consuming.

What we hoped to accomplish

Starbucks has determined the importance of these roastery reserve locations in defining the premium experience for their users. With the opportunity that future locations may have greater device concept density, managing content will become more complicated especially with multiple languages as more locations open.

Our Process

Business requirements were determined based off upcoming locations initial tool was scoped to include all devices in Seattle and future planned locations. The team initially developed a rudimentary tool that connected to API’s and servers. The process included initial site-mapping, information hierarchy with a focus on scalability. Opportunities included incorporating other tools into an admin portal to streamline partners workflows. I looked at pain points in our users present process. This was done through user feedback and discussion with current and future users of the application. Communication between developers and design was driven by myself to ensure that the most impactful UI and UX changes were incorporated based on user feedback and changing business needs. Utilizing the Agile process the team released an initial phase of the product and is now moving into greater content management and device integration.

Making a difference

Following the development of the application the department quickly saw a vast improvement in front end partner experience both in managing devices and content. The support teams  having resolved their core concerns identified new capabilities to quickly identify, track, and resolve issues and errors globally. The team worked quickly to build and iterate on the tool addressing the needs of our in-store managers and partners.

Starbucks SCT center moving forward

Full content management integration into the calendar section and further development of new devices is next within the. Support users have identified enhancements that could simplify their task/ticket management process. This improvement could see greater Splunk integration for data visualization, and process management. Moving forward stakeholders have included a number of enhancements that were not initially scoped however could provide add a lot of value to partners and users. My biggest takeaway is that communication and prioritization helps drive the most impactful work while limiting scope creep.