Environmental Accounting Product
UX Design, SaaS, High-Fidelity Mockups
Client:
Sphera Solutions - Waste Product, Environmental Accounting Team
Challenge:
As an environmental accounting client, I need a new product to track the entirety of the waste lifecycle involved with production - including:
• Process cycle - source location, waste generated, transportation, and final disposal
• Documentation for bookkeeping, environmental performance reporting, and logistics
• Easy tracking of waste materials considered hazardous
• See all companies involved with each of my waste streams and locations
• Process cycle - source location, waste generated, transportation, and final disposal
• Documentation for bookkeeping, environmental performance reporting, and logistics
• Easy tracking of waste materials considered hazardous
• See all companies involved with each of my waste streams and locations
Process:
• Close collaboration with the Environmental Accounting Senior Product Manager, subject matter experts, and dedicated development team.
• VIP customers were shown an in-progress prototype and asked to submit feedback to help shape final solution.
• VIP customers were shown an in-progress prototype and asked to submit feedback to help shape final solution.
Result
• Below designs and interactions/experiences were ready for launch in 2021
• Early user feedback was positive, this product will help streamline the tracking of a very complicated and regulated portion of company procedures
• Early user feedback was positive, this product will help streamline the tracking of a very complicated and regulated portion of company procedures
The first thing our users need to be able to do is see a list of all locations involved in their company's waste lifecycle. The list needs to quickly convey wether a location is a waste generator, transporter, or disposal facility, the location address, and the location type (facility, warehouse, office, etc.). The screens above show the process of a user editing a location so that a new Governing Body and ID is associated with a location.
Next, our user needs to have the ability to associate a new location and location-based alias to an existing waste stream. The user flow above shows our user navigating to a waste stream, adding the official location name and alias (informal name) for that location. The use of aliases is very important for both locations and waste streams, as trans-national clients use unique terminology based on regions - so most entries require the official corporate naming convention and the informal, regional name. The new location is now associated with a waste stream which is going to make tracking waste stream locations easier and simplify our shipping process.
Next, our user wants to add a new shipment. By clicking the Add Shipment Record button on the Shipments page, our user is prompted to fill out a shipment form with information regarding the waste stream, waste generator, transporter company and transportation mode, governing bodies associated with the shipment (to help automatically determine if this shipment contains hazardous materials our not), and more. If our user has filled out all the necessary details in the previous sections, a lot of this information will auto-populate. Users will have the opportunity to override auto-generated information, but those fields should have simplify their experience.
And finally, our user needs to be able to add Shipment Line Items. This is the area where our user will indicate the exact waste stream and materials included in the shipment. Our governing body added in the previous sections will assign a hazardous label to hazardous materials and our system will automatically calculate shipment density and mass (based on previous information logged during an onboarding process), so our user has accurate information about exactly what and how much is being shipped.