Why Manufacturers Ignored Our Platform and How We Fixed It through Partner Capabilities

How can we alleviate the issue through the partner platform?

A huge issue was that partner capability data was scattered across staffing spreadsheets and where it needed to be—each shop's capabilities and machine management pages—was rarely updated by partners and did not even offer the full breadth of possible manufacturing processes.

So the redesign needed to meet the following needs and constraints:

• Link the capabilities management experience to the machines management experience
• Capture all possible manufacturing processes offered by Xometry including their subprocesses and material specifications
• Allow for detailed descriptions of machines
• Make it easier for partner's to update and manage both capabilities and machines regularly.

Based on research with stakeholders, it became clear that partners rarely used or fully updated their capabilities management after onboarding with Xometry. They were uncomfortably separated, outdated, time-consuming to update, and did not fully capture the breadth of processes used by partners. This meant partners were not getting matched to good-fit jobs, customers often did not receive desired quality parts, and staff needed to manually intervene and match orders to partners.

Following conversations and early feedback sessions with various stakeholders, I continuously tweaked the capabilities' and machines' flows to capture more granular data without becoming taxing. I focused on reworking the designs left behind by the previous designer to better allow for partners to add subprocesses and material requirements related to their already approved processes while also being able to pause processes or apply for new ones. I wanted these features to help capture the various circumstances that befall manufacturers such as machines breaking, buying new ones, or trying to diversify offerings.

Leading moderated usability tests with various Xometry partners allowed me keen insight into what Xometry partners needed. Most of them rarely used the machines and capabilities pages since they did not believe it helped match them with better jobs. One partner noted how the machines they onboarded with did not get reflected in Xometry job offers until talking with staff, which emphasized the importance of this project in helping to better align partner abilities with their Xometry job board. Additionally, partners highlighted the importance of mobile functionality and ease as they need to update their information while working on the job. Prioritizing mobile functionality meant many interactions needed to be simplified. Therefore, I went back to the designs to remove hover states, assisted our mobile designer, and reduced additional features that were not easily adopted by our testers.