Andy is the owner of Fishhead, a digital agency based in Sydney (fishhead.com.au). I have had the pleasure of collaborating with him on several projects and have become a valued client for my design services. Their team comprises some of the finest developers in the city, making working with them both enjoyable and effortless. On our latest project, I am assisting Andy in creating a brand-new B2B platform known as Zimble. Throughout the process, Andy and I have worked closely together, engaging in numerous design iterations.

Zimble is a project that has resulted in a software platform designed to assist businesses that sell products across various e-commerce channels. Its objective is to simplify complex business operations by streamlining system integration.

The project places a strong emphasis on user-friendliness, product management, and enhancing the customer experience. Zimble enables users to effortlessly control and integrate various business applications, thereby saving them time and energy. This solution is primarily tailored to diverse multi-channel e-commerce businesses.

At its core, the Zimble project aims to simplify and expedite business processes with high skill and reliability. Consequently, the project’s focus is on helping business owners manage their operations more efficiently, allowing them to concentrate on business growth.

As the owner of a digital agency, Andy frequently receives and works on projects from various industries, including the e-commerce industry, where he repeatedly encounters similar challenges that need to be resolved.

This experience has provided him with a deep understanding of the challenges faced by businesses in this sector and has inspired the idea behind creating Zimble. Andy recognized that there is a significant market for solutions that simplify the operations of multi-channel businesses. With the growth of e-commerce and multi-channel sales, projects like Zimble have substantial long-term potential.

Through discussions with Andy and other stakeholders, we brainstormed together to identify the problems faced by Fishhead’s customers in the e-commerce industry. I learned that some commonly complained-about issues include difficulties with Stock and Order Synchronization, Product Management, Logistics and Shipping, Channel Performance Monitoring, High Operational Costs, and many other similar challenges.

Andy clarified that Zimble’s primary goal is to simplify and enhance the operations of modern multi-channel businesses. Their aim is to provide a solution that enables users to integrate various business applications, efficiently manage products, improve the customer experience, and optimize backend functionality, all within a user-friendly platform. Therefore, Zimble strives to empower multi-channel business owners with tools that allow them to save time, energy, and resources, enabling them to focus more on business growth and development.

The “User-Centered Design” approach I employed in the Zimble project began with steps that focused on gaining a deep understanding of the needs and preferences of Zimble’s target users. I initiated the process with meetings and discussions alongside Andy and other stakeholders to clarify requirements and product strategies.

Throughout the product development process, I remained dedicated to creating an easy and intuitive user experience. I incorporated feedback from users during final product testing to ensure that Zimble met their needs effectively and became a solution that helped multi-channel business owners address their complex challenges.

In this context, I also designed the site structure (sitemap), information architecture, and user flows (wireflow) to depict the initial product concept and tested this concept through concept testing sessions with potential Zimble users. The results of these tests helped me understand how well the concept aligned with user needs and expectations. After obtaining the best concept based on test results, I proceeded to create the user interface design (UI design) while preparing the visual design elements.

In understanding and identifying the main problems that Zimble aims to solve, Andy and I leveraged relevant customer data related to the discussion. I analyzed these issues and validated them.
The primary problem that Zimble aims to address is the complexity of managing multi-channel businesses. Zimble seeks to tackle various challenges faced by business owners who sell their products or services through various channels such as online stores, physical stores, online marketplaces, and more. Some of the issues successfully identified by Zimble include:

1. Complex Business Processes
   Multi-channel businesses often have complex processes, especially related to product management, inventory, and shipping.
2. Complicated Application Integration
   Integrating various applications and systems in multi-channel businesses can be complicated and time-consuming.
3. Inefficient Inventory Management
   Managing inventory efficiently in real-time across various sales channels is a challenge.
4. Difficulty in Customizing Products
   Multi-channel businesses often need to customize products to meet customer needs.
5. Struggles with Data Optimization
   Optimizing data for various purposes such as sales, management, and marketing can be complicated.
6. Inability to Save Time and Energy
   Effectively managing multi-channel businesses requires a significant amount of time and energy.
7. Challenges in Monitoring and Managing Business Performance
   Multi-channel businesses require effective monitoring and performance management.
8. Channel Performance Analysis
   Analyzing the performance of each sales channel, including sales, conversion, and customer retention, to make informed decisions.

The problem of complexity in managing multi-channel businesses has significant adverse effects on businesses, and this is why it is a pressing concern:

1. Time and Productivity Loss
   Complex processes consume a lot of time and energy that could be used for more productive activities such as product innovation, marketing, and business growth. Businesses that spend too much time managing administration and system integration may experience growth slowdowns.
2. Errors and Inefficiencies
   Complexity can lead to human errors in inventory management, order processing, or customer data, resulting in delivery errors, inaccurate stock levels, or disappointed customers.
3. Poor Customer Experience
   Inability to provide a seamless customer experience across sales channels can damage brand reputation. Customers may face difficulties finding product information, consistent pricing, or when making purchases, potentially driving them to competitors.
4. High Operational Costs
   Managing complex multi-channel businesses often incurs additional costs, such as system integration costs, inventory management costs, and staff training expenses. This can reduce business profitability.
5. Missed Business Opportunities
   Businesses struggling to manage multi-channel operations may miss out on business opportunities, such as launching new products or expanding into new markets, due to being overly focused on internal issues.

Zimble has a significant opportunity to provide a solution to these complexity issues, especially in the ever-growing e-commerce industry, which continues to reshape consumer behaviors and habits.

I was responsible for creating business cards, a comprehensive style guide, and design system that embraced the concept of simplicity and user-friendliness across all aspects of Zimble’s appearance, whether on the website or the web application dashboard.

In this design process, I prioritized conveying the message of simplicity, which is at the core of Zimble. I wanted to ensure that every design element reflected Zimble’s reliability and problem-solving nature as a dependable platform. Through the style guide I meticulously crafted, I ensured strong visual consistency throughout the Zimble platform, providing a cohesive and easily understandable experience for users. This was crucial in helping multi-channel business owners quickly grasp and adopt Zimble while reinforcing Zimble’s image as a superior solution in addressing the complexity of multi-channel businesses.

How to provide solutions that can be applied to Zimble to solve these problems? This is a very important question to answer, although some of the solutions may not be shared in this diary study as they involve sensitive information, which is my commitment to my friend.

Here are some solutions that I want to highlight from the various solutions created for multi-channel businesses:

1. Application Integration
   Allowing easy integration with various digital business applications. This enables users to connect various applications such as online stores, CRM, inventory management, marketing, and delivery services through a centralized user interface.
2. Product Management
   Simplifying the process of creating, updating, and managing products. This allows business owners to easily update inventory and product information.
3. Inventory Management
   Enabling real-time synchronization of inventory and orders across all sales channels. This helps avoid stock and delivery issues.
4. Warehouse Management
   Assisting in warehouse management, ensuring efficiency in storage and distribution operations.
5. End Reporting
   Providing end reporting that helps business owners analyze their performance across all sales channels.
6. Integrated PIM Platform
   Offering integration with Product Information Management (PIM) platforms to better manage product data.
7. Integrated CRM Process
   Zimble can be integrated with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to enhance the customer experience.
8. Product Customization
   Allowing users to build products according to their preferences with special recipes.
9. Integration with Various E-commerce Platforms
   Zimble can be integrated with various e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and others.
10. Plug-and-Play Solutions
    Designing Zimble to be a plug-and-play application that can be easily configured.

Andy and I designed these features as part of the solution to help multi-channel business owners manage their operations more efficiently and effectively.

However, even though we have great solution ideas, they may not necessarily be implemented effectively to achieve their intended goals. This is an interesting challenge to work on with Andy in this Zimble project. To optimize the results of these ideas, I developed potential site maps, simple user flows, and crafted information architecture with the best possible navigation to make Zimble a useful platform with rapid adoption rates.

The Zimble project is quite complex, and even during its creation, I hadn’t come across a similar solution to Zimble, although there may indeed be similar ones out there. This made me truly design the solution from scratch by deeply understanding the users’ needs.

From designing user flows, sitemaps, to information architecture, I decided to create rough sketches through wireframes and low-fi prototypes to test the implementation patterns of the previous ideas, enabling a faster workflow.

I tested the initial concept with 10 target users, and the results were as follows:

1. The feature grouping didn’t entirely result in user-friendly and simple interface patterns.
2. The integration process, which should have been easy and straightforward, became quite complex.
3. Some sketch patterns were unfamiliar to users, such as those during the setup.
4. Information displayed on the dashboard required more attention, from using copy that could cover assumptions to the importance level and user habits in finding relevant information.
5. The customization flow was quite intricate, especially for users with less experience in using business technologies.
6. Some users had difficulty in controlling actions in certain scenarios.

With this user feedback in hand, I discussed with Andy and iterated the concept up to three times until it was ready for high-fidelity design. In finding these solutions, I studied the testing respondents as thoroughly as possible, including their perspectives, interactions, and all other details. Some key solutions I’d like to highlight during the iteration process include:

1. Better grouping of features or solutions by creating the Connect IPAAS and Web Tools features, allowing users to quickly understand all parts, including simplifying all previous features.
2. Redesigning integration, setup, and customization flows to make them easier, and consulting with the development team to determine if these ideas were implementable.
3. Redesigning layouts and patterns more effectively for easier navigation and understanding by users, even those with various backgrounds.
4. And some other minor improvement solutions.

These solutions convinced Andy to proceed with high-fidelity design based on the tested wireframe concept. I created various visual elements and design requirements such as visual design, UI style guide, design systems, illustrations, and more. During the design process, I received feedback from Andy on various aspects of the design, including typography, colors, and other elements.

The Zimble product is now complete, from implementing all the solution ideas, designing in high fidelity to creating a prototype for testing. To ensure a smooth user adoption of Zimble as expected, I conducted usability testing, which revealed that there were some minor interface elements that, although not becoming blockers, could, upon analysis, slow down the users in reaching their goals.

From these tests, it was found that several parts of the Zimble dashboard screen interface required improvements in the use of components, such as more interactive tab models and adjustments in other aspects like component size, component placement, colors, and other small details.

I quickly iterated and thoroughly checked all parts before conducting another round of testing. In the subsequent testing, both Andy and I were satisfied with the results, as all the initial issues had been resolved effectively and were ready for development by the Fishead developer team.

To support a smooth hand-off process, I created design documentation to ensure that the developer team could understand the design details and requirements I had created.

This has been an exciting project with Andy, and their developer team has been highly professional and reliable. After a successful launch six months ago, Zimble has achieved several milestones:

1. User acceptance has increased by 16% in the past 6 months.
2. Over 68% of Zimble users are satisfied with the solutions provided.
3. Zimble has successfully improved the efficiency of their customers’ businesses, measured through time and resource savings, as well as increased productivity.
4. Zimble has reached users in Sydney, Australia.

I am delighted to have contributed to this innovative project with Andy, providing solutions that help multi-channel business owners. We hope that the Zimble platform we designed will bring significant benefits to them by making their business processes more efficient and straightforward. This is a crucial step in supporting business development in an increasingly complex digital era, and we hope Zimble will help business owners achieve even greater success.