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
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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
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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.

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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

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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

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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

  • Tax management

  • Personnel

  • Shit management

  • Wage management

  • Multi-locations

  • Room configuration

  • Cash drawers

  • Register hardware configuration

  • Customer checkout configuration

  • Notifications management