Heath Gerlock

Senior Consultant

Kaya IQ

A modern-responsive cannabis retail management web application built from scratch

Getting a complex project on track

A modern UI design tool-chain

Organizing the business & project

A Story Map was created to prioritize software design and development tasks

Breaking down the project story

Eight months of project history existed before Heath and a project manager were added to the team. Numerous regulatory, technical, and legal challenges had been meticulously sifted through. A solid technical architecture was in place but design guidance was needed. Resource constraints—financial and time—put pressure on the team to get results quickly.

A Strategy Map was created to prioritize business tasks

Breaking down the business tasks

As a new business there were numerous operational, financial, legal, and administrative tasks that needed managed. Many of these overlapped with the software development tasks. These tasks were laid out so the founders could focus on removing road blocks for the software development team.

The Priority Targets and their current status

Visualizing Targets

The structure of the business, product, and marketing efforts were broken down into three key targets. This visual helped the founders and the project team stay focused and delegate work to keep each sphere of effort on task.

Terpene and Cannabinoid research

Research!

As an emerging market, cannabis dispensaries often lack sound information regarding the products they sell. To fill this gap extensive research was conducted on Terpenes and Cannabinoids. Views were designed to serve up this information to bud tenders and customers on a product by product basis.

User Experience Research & User Interface Design

Dashboard

During phone interviews dispensary owners advised what information was most relevant to their day-to-day decision making. The Dashboard was refined over several iterations and prototype reviews to dial in this information.

Relevant Information

Notifications—every activity for every user is logged
Time frames—daily to annual and custom
Revenue—revenue, overhead, profit, and more!
Orders—product count, refunded, shipped, etc.
Products—inventory, transferred, incoming, refunded, out of stock, low stock, etc.
Customers—new, returning, abandoned carts, refunds, etc.

Products & Inventory

Product and inventory visibility are the lifeblood of retail management. Cannabis introduced several complex challenges to these business constructs. The goal was to provide practical and unobtrusive ways for a business to manage these complexities. The UI went through dozens of iterations as dispensary owners and the software development team provided valuable feedback.

Cannabis Complexities

Batch management
Variants
Lab result logging
Deliveries
State-by-state tax models
Weight oriented variant pricing
Mix & match ordering options
Stacking
Medical classifications
Step pricing
Pricing profiles

Order Fulfillment

Every dispensary approached order fulfillment a little differently. Many scenarios emerged that were accounted for in the UI design. Clean notifications were a common request. Multiple order fulfillment methods were designed. Finally, clear processes that indicated the current status of each order with the key action for the current step were developed.

Ordering Scenarios

Partially shippable
Mixed in-stock, out-of-stock orders
Deliverable orders
Businesses with and without fulfillment centers
Partial cancellations
Multi-location businesses
Online vs. in-store orders
Multi-payment method orders
Returnable vs. non-returnable products
Refundable vs. non-refundable products

Settings

While arguably not the most exciting aspect of retail management, settings are at the center of all business operations. The core features needed to manage this vital business information were brought into focus by working closely with dispensary owners, personnel, and customers.

Settings Requirements