Sprintout
Project Type
Personal Project
Duration
3 Months
Tools
Figma, Miro
Role
UX Generalist
The Problem
Print heavy environments like Architecture & Design schools possess unique challenges that are unaccounted for in the printing space, be it in in-house printing services or external print shops that serve such Individuals.
Design Opportunity
How might we empower students to make informed decisions to ensure timely submissions while streamlining and optimizing various processes involved for a printing service to maximize productivity and profitability?
The Solution
A print management service that provides essential tools to those seeking printing services to make informed decisions and obtain timely prints while boosting the overall efficiency and functioning of the printing space for retailers.
OVERVIEW
1
Sprintout equips users with key data to make informed decisions that balance time, cost and quality considerations for their printing needs.
2
The ability to print several sheets at once, each with individualized print settings and advanced, user-created presets, fulfills the requirements of power users.
3
The integration of AI helps identify errors and irregularities, preventing expensive print mistakes or reprints, which in turn saves paper, time, money, and effort.
4
Print shop owners can now streamline approval processes for incoming print requests and effectively manage their business during periods of high demand.
5
Print shop analytics help drive growth, uncover underlying issues, guide future investment decisions and elevate the business to the next level.
30 students crowding around 4 printers, anxiously waiting to collect their A1 size printouts for a submission that is due in 20 minutes. Each A1 sheet takes 3-5 whole minutes to print. Another 5 are arguing among themselves for the coveted first place for giving the print command. In this utterly chaotic environment, the Librarian struggles to maintain decorum, but to no avail. 12 of them ended up with a late remark and lost attendance for that lecture that day.
Almost all Architecture & Design school students rely heavily on printouts as they are not only used for submissions, but in almost all lectures for various discussions and critiques.
Printouts required for subjects every 1 out of 2 classes
Printouts required for subjects every 1 out of 3-4 classes
Timetable of an architecture school
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I constantly wondered about my peers in other architecture colleges who depended on nearby local printing shops from the beginning. How did they survive through all these years? Did they wake up at 5am just to be early at the printing shop to ensure timely submissions?
USER RESEARCH: STUDENTS
Getting a quick printout is... a hassle?
I began my research with an objective to find answers to the following questions:
What does a typical routine for an architecture & design student look like?
What were the various steps involved in obtaining a printout?
What were the various challenges encountered when performing these tasks?
By charting each step alongside the user's level of frustration or fulfillment, I identified critical points in the journey that demanded significant attention and intervention to enhance the process.
Students of Colleges with In- house printers (Top)
Students of Colleges without In-house printers (Bottom)
Collective Journey map of Students
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Individual Journey map of 6 participants consisting of 4 students from colleges with in-house printers and 2 students without in-house printers
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Please note,
Case 1: Students of Colleges with In- house printers
Case 2: Students of Colleges without In-house printers
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In both cases, the entire journey of obtaining a printout consisted of multiple, repetitive steps.
A user specifies multiple details pertaining to his printout via email or calls to the print shop employee. This same information has to be inputted again in the system by the employee while giving the print command.
The responsibility to perform the ultimate action of giving a print command was not executed by the customer but by the employee of the shop.
This occurred in Case 2, and made the customer nervous as they were NOT the initiating authority and needed to rely on someone else.
Students were extremely concerned about the potential long queues and wanted the best output as quickly as possible with minimum expenditure.
In case 2, Students were forced to take their best guess regarding which shop had the least crowd before sending their print files to a particular shop and hope for the best.
Next, I proceeded to understand the perspectives of different stakeholders involved in the process. Before I approached them, I began my desk research by understanding the dynamics of running and maintaining a printing service. I looked into reports compiled by Heidelberg and Darrel Amy to find answers to the following.
What is the current state of this industry and what lies ahead?
What hardships do owners encounter when it comes to scaling the business?
What are the major factors that can make or mar your service?
What opportunities exist and what do existing solutions look like?
KEY LEARNING
In most cases, productivity in the average print environment is between 20-40%. A large part of the potential isn’t being utilized. Improving productivity by around 20% lays the basis for increasing profits by around 50%.
The data also shed light on a 6 strategies to direct future growth to ensure long term growth and success:
6 strategies to direct future growth:
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I proceeded to understand the degree to which people managing printing services were aware of, or had implemented certain strategies within their printing space. I visited 2 colleges with in house printers and 2 local shop owners.
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When printing jobs increased exorbitantly, shop owners increased manpower to cope with the load.
These services are in high demand during specific hours and at a plateau during the rest of the day. Increasing manpower was a short term solution that was momentary and did not address the long standing problem.
For 3/4 owners, scaling up the business & enhancing their service meant investing in printers with greater speeds and better outputs.
All the interviewed individuals kept manual book records of inventory and did not utilize the collected data to direct future investment in the business
The root cause of the problem lay in the inability of students to predict the waiting time to obtain a print, leading to uninformed decisions based on guess work and probability.
Individuals responsible for running the printing service relied heavily on traditional and manual methods of operation that ultimately led to inefficiencies, slowdowns and a lesser output. These problems got magnified during peak hours
DESIGN OPPORTUNITY
How might we optimize processes in printing environments to empower students to obtain quality printouts in a timely manner.
After arriving at a statement I was happy with, I moved on to the ideation phase. At this point, I believed I had a good understanding of the functioning and role of each stakeholder. I did a storyboarding session with these individuals to validate what I had in mind.
This sequence of events was well-received and the favourite aspect for the participants, was the idea of inputting print details oneself without relying on print shop employees to do so. The idea of being able to print remotely was equally appreciated.
User Research 1
User Research 2
Design Opportunity
Ideation
Wireframing
Looking to chat?
Get in touch with me on keenan11@uw.edu