POGO
Improving the purchase order creation workflow by giving visibility and timely feedback to user uploads
Overview
POGO is Lowe’s new internal platform for managing purchase orders and inventory replenishment. With many different supply chain personas and over 2000 users relying on it, accuracy and timely communication are critical. A key issue emerged in creating purchase orders through the manual upload process: after uploading excel files, users received little to no feedback, causing confusion and repeated errors. I designed a progress bar feature that provides clear status updates, reducing redundant uploads and ensuring purchase orders are created with effieciency in mind
Challenge
Designing improvements for POGO came with its share of challenges. A major modernization effort was underway, requiring teams to shift from heavily customized code to a stricter design system. This added complexity, especially since multiple supply chain applications needed to stay aligned. With so many updates happening simultaneously, even small feature changes took longer to execute. Another challenge was the development environment. Each application had different technical limitations, and team bandwidth was low. This meant we had to carefully prioritize user problems that would deliver the greatest impact, remain feasible to build, and stay consistent with existing application flows.
Solution
We narrowed the scope to focus solely on the issues with manual uploads. I designed a progress bar pattern that provided users with clear feedback and visibility into the status of their file uploads. This ensured users understood what was happening in real time, reducing confusion and unnecessary resubmissions. The feature was built to align with the new design system guidelines while remaining flexible enough to support future use cases across other supply chain applications.
Role
Product Designer
Team
- 2 Product Managers
- 2 Product Designers
- 1 Content Designer
- 3 Software Developers
Tools
- Figma
- Microsoft Forms
- ChatGPT
Timeline
1 Month | July 2025
Verifying the Problem
Among the many pain points in POGO, the manual upload workflow stood out. It was a critical step in creating purchase orders, yet users were left without feedback after submitting their files. This lack of visibility created confusion, led to unnecessary resubmissions, and slowed down the process across multiple teams. By reviewing user feedback and internal error reports, we confirmed that addressing this single issue could remove a major source of friction. Narrowing the scope allowed us to target a high-impact problem, reduce errors, and deliver value without overextending limited design and development resources.
Target Users
The primary users of this workflow included the Inventory Replenishment Senior Specialist (IRSS), the Senior Analyst Systems Support, and the Associate Inventory Planner. Each of these roles relied on manual uploads to create and manage purchase orders accurately and efficiently. Because their work directly affected vendors, transportation, and inventory flows, even small errors could have costly downstream effects. Focusing on these users allowed us to target a pain point at the core of daily operations, reduce avoidable mistakes, and improve overall confidence in the system.
Initial Designs
I began by exploring ways we already give visibility to the upload progress to keep the solution simple, while staying consistent with the new design system and other supply chain applications. The stakeholders involved also noted that they wanted to keep the workflow the same for the users. This included the ability to upload multiple files at once. The first concepts we attempted use a progess bar design pattern from a similar application that included status indicators through each of the validation steps. However, this is where the limitations of different applications made us pivot.
Final Design and Prototype
Early reviews with product managers and developers helped refine the direction. The first thing we decided was that users will only be able to upload one file at a time. We convinced stakeholders that changes to the workflow were necessary to prevent minor errors, and we assured them that the benefits would out weight their worries. This way, we wouldn't have to use multiple progress bars in the design because that would create a problem with design consistency. Next, we learned from the developers that there are two validation points in this workflow instead of three, and the final one happens after a file has been uploaded.
That made our initial designs with the progress steppers give a false since of completion. We decided that wouldn’t be a good experience to show the user that the system has completed these different steps only for it not to be true. From there, we decided to strip the design pattern down to the bare minimum. Our final designs became more simplified and streamlined. Once the flows were polished, I created a prototype from it. Then it was time to perform a usability test on it.
User Testing and Readout
We conducted usability testing through interviews with seven participants across key supply chain roles: five Inventory Replenishment Senior Specialists (IRSS), one Associate Inventory Planner, and one Senior Analyst System Support. The business objectives were to decrease upload completion time and reduce ambiguity in the manual upload process. Research goals focused on providing visibility into upload progress, giving appropriate feedback to user actions, and observing impressions of the updated POGO designs.
I partnered with our research team to write the testing scripts, designed the prototype used in the sessions, and personally moderated the test interviews. This allowed me to observe first-hand how participants interacted with the new design and capture their feedback in real time.
The results were highly positive. Users responded well to the new progress bar feature, noting that visibility into file processing made the workflow significantly clearer, especially when working with larger files that required more time. There were secondary features we also tested, but had more to do with the modernized UI change than our specific issue. I collected all of the data and used Figma Slides to format the information to be suitable for the stakeholders. I presented the findings to our Director, Senior Product Managers, Lead Designers, and Buisness Partners. Below is the "Readout Report" used in the presentation.
Conclusion
This project demonstrated how a focused design improvement can have an outsized impact on both users and business outcomes. By addressing a single pain point in the manual upload process, we reduced ambiguity, built user confidence, and set a foundation for more consistent and scalable patterns within POGO. The key takeaway was that even small, well-scoped features such as a progress bar can meaningfully improve workflows when grounded in user needs and aligned with system guidelines. Going forward, the same approach can be extended to other high-friction areas of POGO and related supply chain applications, ensuring that future enhancements deliver clarity, consistency, and measurable value.