Increasing Job Alignment and User Satisfaction by Enhancing Partner Experience with over 100% Growth
CONTEXT
After joining the Xometry partner network, users can detail their machines' specifications and apply for different manufacturing processes on the platform. This process allows partners to receive specified jobs based on manufacturing requirements. Machines and capabilities on Xometry are tied together as the machines help inform what processes partners can take on and at what scale. I took over this project from a previous designer, so the flows were already mostly updated to the new design system. However, there were key questions left to be resolved in the MVP:
How should related manufacturing processes appear?
How should multiples of the same machine look? Same machines but with different dimensions or details?
Objective
Improve and perfect the Xometry partner experience in specifying machining and manufacturing capabilities.
Ideation and Testing
I iterated on the capabilities and machines partner flows. The designs allowed for partners to add subprocesses and material requirements related to their already approved processes as well as pausing them and applying for new ones. Similarly, the machines flow followed a similar pattern with the ability to add new machines or edit the details of specific ones within types of machinery.
Moderated usability testing helped refine the designs for the partner pages and identify the strong user need for mobile functionality while working on the job.
Outcomes
The updates to capability management promotes greater job alignment and user satisfaction by allowing partners to provide granular details on their manufacturing capabilities, so Xometry understands exactly what kind of jobs are the most suitable for them. The expansion of machining information the partner platform,
Partner capabilities grew from only 37 to over 350.
Partner machines grew from 25 to 84, with over 50 attributes added.
Increased precision and consolidation of partner sharing to refine job assignment.
Identified potential future development with deliverables like next steps and current workflows.
