Genetica
UX/UI Design
Summary
Genetica is an up and coming tech company looking to automate and stabilize the cannabis industry. Genetica has launched Flora AI and OS, an artificial intelligence and management operating system that enables dispensary employees to give more perfected product recommendations, as well as automated business forecasting for sales and projected inventory effects.
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​Genetica is currently building out the employee side of their service, and we were tasked with creating a mobile-first employee portal that allows employees to view customer information and their recommended products.
Timeline
12 Weeks, May - July 2023
My Role
UI Design Lead, UX Researcher
Tools
Figma, Canva, Gsuite
Deliverables
Employee Portal Prototype, Service Design Blueprint
Methods
Task Analysis, Surveying, User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Persona Development, User Flows, Storyboarding, Sus Surveys & Usability Testing, Service Blueprint, Design Studio, Sketching, Wireframing, and Prototyping.
Understanding Genetica
Flora Match, part of Genetica’s Flora AI product suite, is a product recommendation platform and dashboard utilizing a data pool of over 650 million sources in real-time to select the best products for individual consumers scientifically. On the customer side the user answers 12-15 questions after scanning a custom QR code, and is recommended 3-5 products best suited for their individual needs. Genetica is currently building out the employee side of their service, which you can see below, and we were tasked with creating a mobile-first employee portal that allows employees to view customer information and their recommended products.
Customer Intake Form
Current Employee Portal
Discovering our user
Survey Design
After understanding the current employee portal through the creation of a user flow, we wanted to gain more information through a survey sent out to current dispensary bud tenders and frequent customers. We wanted to complete user surveys for the below reasons.
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Understanding customer needs and preferences can help us design an interface that better serves those needs.
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Surveying customers can help identify pain points in the shopping experience that employees may need to address.
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By understanding what customers value most about the dispensary, you can help employees prioritize their work accordingly.
Demographics
Results
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One of the most compelling findings from our survey is that a significant 70% of respondents indicated a strong interest in trying new products.
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This high percentage reflects a noteworthy openness and willingness among our customer base to explore new offerings.
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Since Genetica’s push is recommending products to customers, it felt comfortable moving forward seeing that customers would be open to trying different products
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High Customer Trust: This shows to us that not only are they are open in trying new products but they are also interested in the products that eastenders recommend.
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This indicates that customers highly trust and value recommendations from dispensary employees. This level of trust is a significant asset for Genetica, as it creates a strong foundation for building lasting customer relationships. With the help of Genetica, Budtenders can use Flora to help strengthen these relationships.
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User Interviews
Based on our research with 7 industry budtenders we found that their problems at work stemmed from these main areas:
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Consumers’ misunderstandings and misinformation
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Evolving cultural, legal and social landscape
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Diverse product compositions
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1000+ estimated different strains
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Budtenders interview takeaways
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I believe personal recommendations are the most influential in a customers decisions to buy
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I have better recommendations based in personal and shared experiences
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I know how a product works based on its chemical information, translating terpenes and cannabinoids’ meanings into customers desired effects
Genetica User Persona
Using our survey and interview research we created a user persona to define who we are designing for and allow us to keep their specific user needs and characteristics in mind. Meet Eric,
Eric's Goals and Pain Points
User Scenario
Problem Statement
Eric needs to be armed with adaptive product information so that customers can feel assured and confident in the products recommended to them.
How might we...
…empower Eric with a seamless tool to identify and prioritize customer needs so that they can instill trust, increase transaction size, and retain customer loyalty.
The Genetica Solution
After identifying Eric's problem we designed a solution that:
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Helps Eric identify Customer Needs
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New customer profile page layout
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Flora takeaways from customer intake form
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Gives Eric Autonomy
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Assigning customers when he’s ready to work
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Choose when to multitask by adding multiple customers at a time
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Sending customers to co-workers
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Motivates Eric as a budtender
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Gamification leaderboard “Daily nuggets” and lifetime badges
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Personal analytics
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Empowering Eric with education
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Product specific information found within product cards
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Floras top recommendation on the homescreen
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1st Design Iteration
With our ideal user journey in mind we set out to create our prototype. Through sketching and design sessions we created the first iteration of or product, a mid-fidelity prototype. To ensure the viability of our ideas we conducted usability tests on our mid-fi prototype with 5 participants where I asked them to complete 11 different tasks as if they were Eric logging in to help customers. Based on our results we were able to identify a few areas of improvement for our 2nd iteration.
The first being that 3 out of 5 participants had trouble understanding what daily nuggets meant, so we redesigned our daily nuggets menu to include more description and follow industry standard design. We also added information markers that when clicked open up helpful hint overlays and detailed views of how far Eric is from meeting his goal and what his next reward will be.
The second area that stood out is in locating a customer’s purchase history. 3 out of 5 participants overlooked the “purchase history” hyper-link when asked to locate where they would find what Jamie bought last time.
3 out of 5 participants actually clicked within the vicinity of the shopping bag when asked to find the purchase history, which you can see in the click heatmap on the left. So to follow visual design laws on proximity we moved purchase history to be next to the shopping bag so it’s easier to find because it is close to a related item and users are more likely to expect it there.
Finally, we noted that 4 out of 5 participants had one or more error in finding the filter options for the inventory page. In the mid-fi prototype, filter options were accessible by clicking on the search bar which opened a drop down filter menu. Most participants had trouble finding this area so we gave it it’s own button in the hi-fidelity which now opens the filter menu, and we swapped out the grid and list view buttons for one button that can toggle between the two.
System Usability Scale Survey
We also utilized a System Usability Scale Survey or (SUS) survey to measure the usability of our design. Overall, our mid-fi prototype recorded a SUS Score of 91, which is rated as excellent. With our improvements and detail in adhering to industry standard design principles we predict an even higher SUS score with additional testing.
Next Steps
Through the delivery of this prototype with the client I was reminded that our goal was to remember we're not just enhancing a process or boosting sales. We're empowering a human connection — amplifying Eric's wisdom to guide each customer's cannabis journey confidently.
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Reaching for this goal throughout the project strengthened my human-centered design skills and led to growth in both my practical UI design skills as well as my understanding of UX design principals.