Print-in Store
End-to-end service design for Hermes self-service kiosks — reducing drop-off, removing friction, building confidence.
Service design and interaction redesign for Hermes self-service print kiosks. The challenge: a high-traffic, high-pressure physical touchpoint with poor completion rates. The solution: ruthless clarity, structured flows, and zero room for doubt.
- User research
- Journey restructuring
- Interaction design
- Design system alignment
- Prototype development
Designing for clarity under pressure.
Print-in store allowed customers to generate postal labels without access to a home printer. The kiosk sat at the intersection of digital interaction, physical hardware and retail time pressure. It needed to serve users with varying levels of digital confidence, often standing in queues and making decisions quickly.
Over time, the experience had evolved feature by feature. While functionality expanded, structural clarity declined. Entry points were inconsistently labelled, confirmation states lacked hierarchy and checkout decisions introduced unnecessary anxiety.
The system worked, but it demanded effort. In self-service environments, effort translates directly into abandonment.
Strategy
The objective was not cosmetic redesign but structural optimisation. The focus was reducing interaction cost and rebuilding the journey around primary user intent. Rather than simplifying features, the work centred on simplifying decisions.
Understanding the problem
Moderated usability sessions revealed key hesitation points across scanning, weight selection and confirmation flows. Users struggled most when presented with competing primary actions or unclear feedback.
By mapping behavioural friction rather than interface elements, the core structural weaknesses became visible.
Test or feature prioritisation
The core flow was redesigned around a clearer intent split between scanning and receiving parcels. Visual hierarchy was adjusted to prioritise scanning and progression cues.
Decision anxiety at confirmation was reduced by deferring price visibility until later in the flow. Form inputs were streamlined to ensure micro-friction was eliminated. Each change was tested to ensure confidence improved without adding complexity.
Visual design language
The interface was simplified to reduce visual noise and strengthen hierarchy. Primary actions became clearer, secondary actions receded and progression cues were reinforced.
The system aligned more closely with Hermes' broader digital ecosystem, ensuring familiarity across touchpoints.
Design system
Component consistency was improved to reduce ambiguity in buttons, feedback states and confirmation messaging. Interaction patterns were aligned with existing digital products, ensuring the kiosk did not feel like a standalone system but part of a unified architecture.
New features
Micro-improvements such as clearer scanning guidance, improved form validation and refined confirmation states increased completion confidence. The focus was not feature expansion but friction reduction.
