An e-commerce startup business I worked for needed a system vendors could use to send us complete product information for thousands of products that would in turn be uploaded to the CMS and displayed on the site. Staff developers initially created a rough interface form with various input fields through which vendors could send in products individually.

After vendors were asked to use the new system, I solicited, gathered, and analyzed feedback from their experiences. Their feedback echoed UX problem areas I had identified with the initial interface in several aspects.

First, it proved to be time-consuming and laborious for vendors to input information manually to each field for each product. Second, the interface had multiple UX usability issues including:
• Learnability: The interface was unfamiliar to the vendors, and labels for the input fields were unclear and in some cases did not use plain language. Vendors had difficulty understanding what information they were being asked to include and how to include it.
• Efficiency: Vendors needed to manually add information to each field for each product and submit one form for each product, which was very time-consuming and laborious.
• Satisfaction: Vendors were dissatisfied with the online form and the process of submitting information, which led to loss of vendors and narrowed product offerings on the site, and potentially losing site customers and revenue.

Additionally, from the perspective of the e-commerce employees, the process was also time-consuming and laborious, since errors and incomplete information from vendors not understanding the system resulted in extra employee time and effort in trying to obtain missing information. Also, the manual process of extracting information obtained from the form and uploading and populating in the CMS would have taken months for the number of products, significantly delaying sales.

Using the information gained from users, I worked with a programmer to develop a new system that would address these issues for both vendors and e-commerce employees.
Rather than using an online form, I devised the solution that vendors use an Excel spreadsheet to input information, which would be emailed to and from the vendors. Using Excel spreadsheets and email solved several issues at once:
• Excel and email are common products that most businesses use and current and future vendors would already have access to and familiarity with these products, solving the learnability issues with the online form.
• Excel exported as a CSV file allowed batch uploading of information to the CMS used, bypassing the need for individual manual product uploads, and solving efficiency issues.
• The uploaded batch CSV files automatically populated products on the site, significantly reducing the process time spent by staff.

An end result of the new process using spreadsheets was a dramatic reduction in product information upload and site population time from months to weeks and days, and significant reduction in errors and missing product information.

Further, the use of Excel spreadsheets and gained usability by vendors meant product information obtained by the business was consistent, and in turn created more consistency across products and product pages displayed on the site, meeting end users’ (customers’) expectations of how product pages on an e-commerce site should appear, and giving credibility to the business.