Backroom Inventory

Context

A Walmart Supercenter holds 15,000 backroom boxes. Associates couldn't get to them fast enough — and shelves were going empty.

The existing backroom inventory process consumed nearly twice the labor hours a store had available each week. Completion wasn't behind. It was structurally impossible. When associates couldn't move fast enough, shelves emptied. When the system produced results they couldn't rely on, they stopped trying to use it correctly. The tool and the process were failing in tandem.

System Failure

The process had eight structural problems. Two were doing the real damage: it took too long, and nobody trusted the data.

Before drawing anything, I designed the research framework: a service blueprint mapping every action, touchpoint, role, emotional state, and failure point across the process. Eight problems surfaced. Most were contributing factors. Two were load-bearing: the process couldn't be completed in the time available, and associates had systematically disengaged from the data. A UI refresh wasn't going to fix either.

The Reframe

Product knew the system was broken. They didn't know how to see it as two separate problems.

Speed and trust look like one problem. They aren't. A faster process doesn't automatically restore confidence in data that's been unreliable for months. And a trust intervention that doesn't address completion time leaves associates exhausted and skeptical.

I reframed the work as two distinct design challenges: a process associates could actually complete, and a system they could actually believe. That distinction changed everything downstream.

Process & Key Decisions

We evaluated drones, RFID, AR headsets, and physical reconfigurations. The right answer was already in every associate's hand.

I prioritized 15+ pain points by impact and downstream effect, then explored three solution dimensions simultaneously.

Environment — Prototyped physical backroom reconfigurations across multiple stores. It helped. Not enough.

Technology — Evaluated RFID, drones, fixed cameras, AR headsets, and more. Removed devices from two departments: chaos within days. Headsets: technically interesting, operationally impractical at Walmart's scale. The Zebra handheld — already in every associate's hand, already part of the workflow — was the answer the hardware exploration confirmed.

UI — Stripped the AR overlay to what was genuinely actionable. Thumb-sized markers: green or red, long-press for detail. Nothing else made the cut. The process collapsed from a multi-branch flow to three steps: point, tap, put.

Outcomes & Impact

2:34 per bin became 0:42. Associates said they trusted the system again. FastCompany called it "barebones and brilliant."

73% reduction in time per bin, confirmed by timed task comparisons and independently reported by FastCompany. Associates reported that counting inventory felt easier and that they believed the data again — both problems, addressed.

VizPick launched at 3,500 stores. Rolled out chain-wide. Still running.

Reflection

The most valuable artifact was the service blueprint. Not the AR screens.

The blueprint is where the structural failure became legible — where speed and trust separated into two distinct problems that needed two distinct design responses. The AR overlay is what shipped. The blueprint is what made it possible to ship the right thing.

If I revisited anything: I'd instrument trust recovery as a measurable signal from day one. SUS captures usability. It doesn't capture the moment someone stops working around a system and starts working with it. That shift happened here. It deserved its own metric.