Refining BlueBox for Reliability and Scalability

Context

BlueBox is a smart locker system operating across 300+ residential buildings in Metro Vancouver, supporting over 5,000 daily deliveries. As BlueBox scaled, recurring support patterns revealed reliability gaps and fragmented experiences across residents, couriers, and building staff, increasing operational overhead and support dependency.

This project focused on strengthening reliability, reducing friction across digital and physical touchpoints, and improving operational efficiency through more scalable experiences.

Team

1 UX Designer, 2 Developers, 1 QA Engineer

Duration

4 months

support analysis

Reviewing customer support inquiries revealed recurring themes that extended beyond isolated interface issues, highlighting broader system-level challenges that informed three focus areas for subsequent design efforts.

I got a text that my package was delivered, but the compartment was empty. What’s going on?

The design is messy and nothing works like you’d expect, just totally not worth the hassle.

I’d like to unlock the compartments at the locker without using the physical keys provided.

30+%

False drop-offs causing empty pickup experiences

10+%

Inconsistent interface patterns creating user friction

10+%

Lack of on-site control for building management

Problem Investigation 1

How false drop-offs created empty pickup experiences

How the Failure Occurred

A missing confirmation step allowed couriers to close a compartment without depositing a parcel, while the system still marked the delivery as complete.

Courier

Selects the wrong compartment size while depositing

Courier

The compartment opens, but the parcel doesn’t fit

Courier

Closes the compartment without depositing

The user receives a false pickup notification

Resident

The user opens the compartment and finds it empty

Resident

The user contacts customer support to report the issue

Resident

Impact

This issue alone generated 3+ support inquiries per day, creating avoidable operational overhead and unnecessary resident frustration.

Design Response 1

Adding confirmation before delivery completion

Confirming intent before completion

Before completing a deposit, couriers are prompted to confirm that a parcel has been placed inside the compartment. This confirmation prevents empty compartments from being recorded as successful deliveries and reduces false pickup notifications for residents.

outcome

This change reduced false drop-offs by ~50% and decreased related support inquiries by ~35%.

Problem Investigation 2

How inconsistent patterns created user friction

Identifying key breakdowns

Although these issues appeared in different workflows, they shared the same underlying cause: inconsistent layouts, form structures, and interaction patterns.

Registration Workflow

Inconsistent layouts and form logic increased user errors, making the registration flow difficult to complete.

Mixed information hierarchy

Competing primary actions

Unclear registration flow

Unclear error guidance

High cognitive load

Support Inquiry Workflow

Missing fields and unclear labelling led to incomplete submissions, making the support form difficult to navigate and complete.

Vague information grouping

Missing key information

Hard to find key actions

Poor visual hierarchy

Inconsistent tabs

Lack of visual cues

Impact

These inconsistencies reduced task completion, increased back-and-forth with support, and created unnecessary operational overhead.

Design Response 2

Standardizing cross-workflow interactions

Building shared foundations for consistency

We created a shared design system that standardized visual hierarchy, reusable components, and interaction patterns across the product.

Applying shared patterns across critical workflows

Representative screens showing how shared design patterns were applied across key workflows.

Unit registration

// Unit Management List · Unit Registered Contact List · Unit Regirtration Form

Support Inquiry

// Support Center · My Support Tickets · Create a Support Ticket 1 · Create a Support Ticker 2

outcome

Shared design patterns created a more consistent experience across registration and support workflows, reducing friction and making key tasks easier to complete.

Problem Investigation 3

Building staff lacked direct control over locker operations

Operational roles and access boundaries

Role mapping revealed a missing operational role between couriers and residents. Building staff needed dedicated permissions to manage lockers independently without relying on support.

Deliver packages

Retrieve packages

Existing Roles

Courier

Resident

New Operational Role

Building Management

Disable compartments for internal storage

Unlock compartments individually or all at once

Control multiple lockers with a single action

Design Response 3

Introducing operational access for building staff

Providing secure on-site actions at the locker

We introduced the Staff Control Panel, including secure staff login and on-site management tools that enabled building managers to perform essential locker operations directly at the locker.

outcome

The Staff Control Panel reduced management support requests by ~30% and improved issue turnaround during daily operations.

Product Impact

~50%

Reduced false drop-offs

Fewer empty pickup experiences.

~35%

Reduced support inquiries

Less support related to false pickups.

~30%

Reduced management support requests

More issues resolved on-site.

a few final thoughts

Users judge products, not systems

Even when verification and authentication were outside the product's design scope, they continued to shape how users perceived the overall reliability of the experience. This reinforced that users evaluate the product as a whole rather than individual systems.

Product design extends beyond interfaces

Addressing operational challenges required more than improving screens. Defining roles, permissions, and shared interaction patterns became as important as interface design, expanding my perspective from designing interfaces to product systems.