#Flexport commercial invoice template software#
#Flexport commercial invoice template series#

Our features - a map and list view of all of their shipments - could give clients an at-a-glance view of all of their inventory in transit. When the original dashboard was built, our typical client only had a handful of shipments moving at one time. A particularly revealing quote came from a logistics associate at a large clothing manufacturer, who stated, “I only want to see a shipment if it’s bleeding.”Īs we got to know our clients better, we realized the heart of the issue was the changing nature of our clients. One of the most revealing concepts was a “Flexport Lite” feature that showed the user significantly less data about each shipment. Prior to our research sessions, we created a set of these concepts which were lightweight first guesses that articulated a variety of ideas. Sacrificial concepts are a research methodology which uses low fidelity and far future concepts as a way to enable users to co-design with our team. One of the most revealing exercises was showing clients sacrificial concepts.

#Flexport commercial invoice template series#

In partnership with our research director, Silvia Vergani, we did a series of generative research activities that helped us understand why users were not using this tool and uncovered opportunities to increase adoption and usage of this feature.

We could tell from instrumentation that most people landed on the dashboard only to immediately click to the shipment list page, where they could see more details about the status of the shipment and set relevant filters for their workflow. Our design and research team conducted more than 85 client interviews and from those, we found that many of our clients had outgrown the dashboard. This first version of the dashboard had been in place for a few years so this year we set out to examine usage metrics and conduct client interviews, to discover how our dashboard was being utilized by our users. When we set out to design the original dashboard, we designed it to be the watchtower for your supply chain, allowing users to see the location and progress of every shipment they had moving around the globe - all in one page. The original dashboard was inspired by what we heard from dozens of clients - that there was no tool that allowed them to have a comprehensive view of their supply chain. This worked for a long time, but just like Flexport, our clients and their needs began to evolve.ĭivergent thinking as a way to uncover unknown user needs We enabled our clients to see every status and location across all of their shipments. This experience inspired the design of the first version of our platform. Wouldn’t you want the highest amount of visibility possible into the status of those shipments? You know the anxious feeling you get when you order a moderately expensive thing online and you’re waiting for it to arrive, trying desperately to check the status and current location of it? Well, imagine that you have 1,000 shipments moving at one time valued at several million dollars. This is important, as shipping can be incredibly stressful.

#Flexport commercial invoice template software#

On top of the economic benefits, Flexport also provides world class customer service and tracking software which enables our integrations and operations team to provide clients with real time data on their shipment status. When we buy space at high volumes, we are able to offer lower prices compared to the price our clients would receive if they were to buy directly from these owners. Freight forwarding is like being a travel agent for commercial freight, in that we buy space in vehicles and infrastructure and sell that space to our clients. ++įlexport provides freight forwarding services. ++ In addition to being featured in major publications such as Tech Crunch and Freightwaves, the redesign achieved a ~50% upmarket customer adoption quality score and a 6% NPS increase for customers citing UX as a differentiator. As the designer leading this project, I was tasked with developing a dashboard experience that could handle the complexity and scale of our largest enterprise clients.

Designing user centered tools for logistics and supply chain managementįlexport's clients had outgrown the original version of our dashboard.