Customer service is a cornerstone of The Home Depot’s in-store experience, but until recently, there were limited ways to measure how often and how effectively associates were assisting customers in real time. Two separate initiatives—Themis and SKU Depot—attempted to surface points of customer engagement, but lacked unified reporting.
MyView, our performance tracking and reporting platform, was asked to collaborate with both teams to bring a holistic view of customer assistance across the store, helping leaders at every level identify strong performers, optimize labor allocation, and ultimately strengthen customer satisfaction.
As Senior UX Designer on the MyView team, I led research and design across two collaborative tracks:
Themis: A system where customers press a button near locked merchandise to request associate help. Associates acknowledge via mobile and assist the customer through checkout.
SKU Depot: An internal app used by associates to locate merchandise. We proposed a button associates could press to indicate they were using the app to help a customer.
The goal was to capture actionable data without disrupting the customer experience. I facilitated interviews with store and district leaders, tested reporting assumptions, and designed persona-based flows that supported both tracking and trust.
Shortly after the project began, the Themis team launched its own customer assistance reporting system. MyView had to justify its role in displaying overlapping data without creating confusion.
To address this, I:
Collaborated across product teams to compare reporting systems and reduce redundancy.
Positioned MyView as a higher-level reporting platform, offering historical data, individual-level performance, and regional visibility.
Created data visualizations that aligned with store leader goals and clearly differentiated MyView’s role from Themis.
With SKU Depot, the challenge was trust. Store leaders expressed hesitation around data integrity: associates could inflate their stats by pressing the “Helping a Customer” button without actually assisting anyone.
To address this, I:
Conducted empathy interviews with associates to understand in-aisle workflows and tech limitations.
Prototyped timing-based button restrictions to prevent abuse—though many found them frustrating due to back-to-back customer interactions.
Personally tested the interaction by acting as an associate. I found it disruptive to pause and log every customer engagement—confirming what our research suggested: the button-based tracking was more cumbersome than helpful in high-traffic moments.
Each initiative required a different approach to reach MVP readiness:
Themis Integration (IAA): We successfully piloted this flow in 28 stores, tracking which departments received the most assistance requests, when, and by whom. Leaders began using this data to better staff departments based on customer need.
SKU Depot Button: Despite multiple low-fidelity iterations and stakeholder alignment sessions, the initiative was paused. The experience had too many gaps—particularly around device accessibility, associate behavior, and the risk of unreliable reporting.
The Themis (IAA) integration is now live in select stores, with early feedback pointing to increased associate accountability and improved labor planning. Usage is climbing steadily, and we expect to see a larger adoption curve as Q2 reviews approach.
The SKU Depot initiative, though promising in theory, was not funded for Q1 2025 due to unresolved challenges in user behavior, data reliability, and technical friction. The idea has since sparked broader discussions about how to responsibly track associate performance without disrupting the customer experience or undermining trust.
Keep conceptual ideas low-fidelity early. We overinvested in SKU Depot journey planning before confirming core viability. Quick-and-dirty wireframes would have saved us time.
Test in context. By personally taking on the associate role in-store, I learned how intrusive the tracking flow could feel. Real-world validation clarified user pain points faster than interviews alone.
Engage leadership early when stakeholder ideas aren’t tracking. Delaying those conversations can lead to misaligned expectations.
Avoid overpromising with duplicative tools. MyView’s value emerged from its broader reporting context—not from duplicating what other tools already captured.
