Steelcase

Steele –
AI-supported team building assistant enhancing to foster clear and confident progress by matching a right team and resource

Introduction

A tool that helps salespeople efficiently build teams with the right-fit specialists to successfully process Steelcase Studio orders, which are based on RFPs (Request for Proposals) from design firms and clients ends. With the assigned experienced advocates, salespeople can clearly interpret RFPs and collaborate with the right team members to ensure
a smooth and effective project execution with confidence.

Client

My Role

Project context

Primary research (user Interview /card sorting)
Ideation & Sketching
Storyboarding & Scenario development
UX System development
Iterative prototyping

Team project : 3 members
Industry Sponsored
14 weeks
2022.08 - 2022.12

Ryan Schmidt, General manager @SCS studio

PROJECT GOAL

Create a tool for salespeople at Steelcase Studio to drive their confidence and clarity when fully customized product is needed for a client RFP.

PROBLEM / INSIGHTS

The one-way communication with stakeholders complicates the interpretation of the text-heavy RFP with varying formats, making it challenging to find the optimal solution with the right specialists.

Feature Overview

Core Features

AI-Supported
Project Configuration

Simplified entry point – Steel is integrated into the salespeople’s email system, allowing it to thoroughly interpret various RFPs. Steel detects new project RFP files and extracts key words by transferring them into Steelcase’s internal system.

Salespeople can identify the estimated team size and specific components what to proceed. Also, they can enhance background knowledge by reviewing past successful projects.

Core Features

Multi-faceted Specialist Cards by Profile, Projects, and Work Relationships

Offering multi-faceted salespeople's profile cards, with a focus on their availability and skillsets for project requirements, through tag-based modals.

With comprehensive and diverse profile options, users can make informed decisions when selecting team members.

Advanced Feature - Multimodal Experience

Build 'Growth and Learning Culture' with Assigned Advocate

Promoting a 'Growth and Learning Culture,'
Steele assigns experienced advocates to salespeople, encouraging them to collaborate to teaming with the RIGHT-Fit specialists.

This cohesive partnership helps salespeople resolve various RFP issues and urgent requests more efficiently in the future.

Core Features

Visualized Project Board for Streamlined Discussion

Centralizing scattered information and resources onto a single project board helps team members consolidate communication, ensuring everyone is on the same page with the procedure.

By integrating advocate-involved quick chats, salespeople can make faster and more accurate decisions. This streamlined communication, reducing confusion and friction.

Link to Clickable Prototype

RESEARCH

What challenges do salespeople face with non-standard RFP and how to address it?

Build rapid understanding

Our team interviewed with 3 sales people (1 Junior @Newyork, 2 Senior @Michigan ), 1 wood specialist, and 1 strategist. With that, we can understand overall work process and figure out the major pain points of proceeding new RFP projects. Meanwhile, I examined the Steelcase’s delivered materials to validate and explore unrecognized problem areas for improvements.

Research Findings

Through the research, we discovered notable issues.

Brainstorming & Ideation

How can we support salespeople to accelerate the order success through comprehensive preparation before initiation?

Among derived ideas from meetings such as clarifying interpretation, seamless communication, targeted solution, and cooperative training, my team tried to investigate the experiences of salespeople to positively affect the user experience and impact actual business growth together. As a result, we found based on the previous findings,

Defining design concepts and features

Based on findings and insights from research, we create possible scenarios that can enhance salespeople's' experiences, especially related to RFP clarity, team alignment, and efficient communication. With supportive system, we hope salespeople can immerse into their work with the right people by prioritizing what they can do and can't do. At the end, Steelcase can expect employees’ great confidence, high clarity, and strong responsibility on overall work process which might contribute to achieving profitability.

Design direction for solution

Design a smart team building and communication system for heightening knowledge assets, lessening the assumptions, and receiving immediate feedback

Integrate information seamlessly - shortcuts for existing app-switch habits
Contextualize access across devices - lower effort to actively engage and response
Consider to reduce learning cost - provide intuitive onboarding experience
Foster ' You're not alone' work environment - equip teams with the responsibility to make decisions collaboratively.

What is the Steele?

Steele is an AI-enhanced team building assistant, ensuring the optimal matching of resources and team members ‍for Salespeople.

EVALUATION + ITERATION

Below are the 3 improvements based on user feedback and testing.

Building a stronger emotional connection between salespeople and the AI so that they can feel comfortable and positive environment :
Putting a human-esque name, 'Steele.'

Through this methodology, AI can be recognized as another human who supports the sales people, not just a machine that operates as an automated system within the company. This creates a sense of human-like fellowship that the proposal is trying to seek. The environment in which values the teamwork with Steele. Thus, the proposal helps salespeople confidently facilitate their tasks and benefits the business improvements in an overall comfortable and trustable environment.

A single tag(skillset) based specialists' profile list is not sufficient to improve finding the most relevant team members :
Providing multiple, categorized tabs for building an ideal team

[ Design Iterations ]

At first, we focused on matching people’s availability and skillsets of project requirements by using tags-based employee card. However, based on feedback from Ryan, the sales team wants to see more comprehensive and diverse profile options to make informed decisions when selecting team members(specialists).

[ Final Improvement ] - 3 Tabs

Basic Profile Tab
Reflecting sales people’s experience data, personality, working style and availability

Project based Tab
Providing related adept who successfully accomplished previous similar project

Work Intimacy based Tab
Visualization Tab - Represent employee network intimacy and chemistry diagram

Encouraging efficient communication within a team :
Putting an interactive color coding of each component and its status improves communication efficiency and clarity

[ Design Iterations ]

Redesigned the team dashboard by adjusting prioritized info module and merging visual elements. Yet, user feedback indicated it needs more clearer indicator for different stages of component status.

[ Final Improvement ] - Reinforcing interactive color-coded elements for comprehensive understanding.

Visualized each components to enhance clarity. / Colored-tags aligned by component status creating visual hierarchy and easy to navigation. / Interactive colored elements enhance communication efficiency.

Go to Final Design 👆Link to Clickable Prototype

RESULTS

At the final stage, we presented our product to Steelcase Studio leadership on 3 separate occasions.
Their strong interest of 'You Are Not Alone' cultural setting reinforced our belief that we've created a user-centered solution tailored precisely to the unique needs of salespeople.

With this product, salespeople can enhance work efficiency throughout the RFP interpretation to team-building stages, potentially saving between 30 minutes to 1-2 hours.

Regarding the usability of the team-building system, its SUS (System Usability Score) improved from 43 to 81
after several iterations and optimizations. This can be interpreted as fairly desirable for salespeople.

REFLECTION

Key Takeaways

Visual has more rooms to express precise information

New, and complicated information are easier to process when it is presented visually. However, the delivered current RFPs from dealers usually consist of a text-heavy with lack of visual, which prevents salespeople to have a precise understanding. Hence, strongly represented graphic elements help salespeople communicate efficiently under confidence with clearer interpretation of RFP.

Reflecting the real world into design for user desirability

To fulfill the desirability of this project, my team investigates salespeople's complex daily work life immersing ourselves in their journey. The more we explore, the more we get valuable insights. As a result, introducing cultural systems like 'You Are Not Alone' and 'Growth and Learning' in the business realm has the potential to be a game-changer, significantly enhancing work performance."