Rethinking the United States Postal Service (USPS)
Digital Experience

Summary

Overview
USPS has recently undertaken an effort to reimagine the citizen experience completely. As they think about the future, USPS needs to consider modernizing digital services, customer expectations, and service approaches to create a more authentic, trustable, and future-proof mail experience for millions of U.S. citizens.

Objective
Understand and optimize the USPS online ecosystem of today.

Methods
Usability Testing +Digital In-home Ethnography + Survey

Insights
COVID has pushed people to explore new ways of using USPS services, but there continues to be a mismatch between the users and the USPS language online.

Recommendations

Redesign the app to be a real app version rather than a website integrated into an app. The USPS official app should include onboarding screens and improve overall navigation, colors, and icons to improve the mobile experience.

Background

From prior research, USPS faced a trust deficit, accountability gap, and digital experience shortfall compared to private-sector alternatives. Naturally, the perception that USPS is less convenient than other options has led to changes in usage patterns.

USPS aims to learn how its system can overhaul the design of services that better meet the needs of citizens throughout the 2020s. They aim to understand the drivers/barriers to USPS usage today and areas for end-to-end improvement in their digital apps and physical experiences.

As a team, we looked into how USPS can work to develop a forward-looking innovation that helps them identify critical Citizen Experience improvements they should prioritize over the next few years.

Role: Lead UX Researcher

Tasks: Conduct heuristic evaluations, user testing, survey design, create insights and deliver final presentation.

Collaborators: Noah Keppers, MDes’ 21; Zach Schwartz, MDes’ 21; Yutian Sun, MDes’ 21

What are common UX issues in both our digital and physical touchpoints? Where might citizens get confused or frustrated?

What are users satisfied with in our current system – and where might we improve today?

Research Questions

Approach

  • Secondary research: review previous publications about USPS innovation projects and current efforts to improve digital and in-person experiences.

  • Heuristic Evaluation: analyzed the app's current state, created top-of-mind recommendations, and visualized possible tasks that users could perform in the user testing.

  • User Testing: asked participants to accomplish tasks that might be useful and necessary when using USPS.

  • Digital In-home Ethnography: due to COVID, we asked participants to show us around their homes to view where they get their mail and keep it. As well as ask them to share screens and navigate through USPS digital service

  • Card sorting: obtain feedback on what the brand means and understand usage trends of postal service.

  • Survey: corroborate previous findings with the rest of the population.

User Testing

Participant Data

2 groups of users were interviews

Group 1: Latin American women between the ages of 30 and 45 living in the US for 2 to 16 years.
Group 2: US natives between 40 and 50 years old.

Testing tasks

Imagine you want to mail a postcard to a friend. Please, browse the app to buy an envelope.

Search for the nearest post office locations and look for directions.

Imagine you are scheduling a pickup. Fill out the required information.

Calculate the price for sending a package using your zip code and a friend’s zip code in another state.

Please be sure to look for the Domestic Business Services tab.

Results

Users typed on the search bar to buy stamps and redirected them to the USPS store tab.

Users were uncomfortable with the app turning into a website layout once they started the navigation.

People did not enjoy using the in-app map when looking for the nearest post office. They wished they could be redirected to Google Maps.

Scheduling pickup was the most straightforward task without any
real improvements that the users
could pinpoint.

For calculating the price to send a package, users reported it as “not an easy task, “and several complained about the rates and costs.

Users could not find this section when looking for the Domestic Business Service tab. It took around 2 minutes to give up on the task.

Insights

The US Postal Service has long been a treasured American institution. However, the USPS is sometimes difficult to love.

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Recommendations

USPS should keep providing citizens opportunities for joy when sending and receiving mail. The company can cultivate trust and support by being proactive. In terms of digital transformation, USPS should prioritize usability and clarity. Changes at the interaction level can create broad systemic shifts.

Improve communication about digital options.
Users described feeling reluctant to visit the post office due to the COVID-19 case increases but often weren’t aware of digital alternatives. Other industries, like supermarket stores, have implemented and marketed digital experiences to reduce human interaction and contamination pathways.   

Start with basic usability fixes.
During our UX testing sessions, users identified small changes that would hugely improve their experiences. For example, breaking forms into smaller steps allows for progressive information disclosure, making larger goals seem less daunting.

Link digital and physical experiences.
Digital platforms can streamline in-person experiences with the minimal infrastructure required. For example, DoorDash minimizes restaurant wait times, and all businesses need to get started is an iPad and a mobile app.

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