Replacing a Physical Binder with a Living System

Store employees at Dick's Sporting Goods determined which security tag to use — and where to place it — by flipping through a physical binder called the MES (Merchandise Exposure Standards). When corporate updated the standards, those updates traveled slowly through store managers, printed on paper, inserted into binders that may or may not have been current.

The results were predictable: incorrect tagging, product damage, theft from under-tagged items, customer frustration from over-tagged ones, and store employees spending time hunting for information instead of serving customers.

Before designing anything, I mapped the full stakeholder ecosystem. Each group had a different relationship with the problem.

I conducted surveys across all four stakeholder groups — corporate employees, store managers, floor staff, and customers — in sequence. Each layer revealed a new dimension of the same problem. Corporate didn't know how broken the binder system was at the store level. Store managers didn't realize how much time employees spent searching. Employees didn't know updates had even been issued.

The TC52 device had real technical constraints: limited processing power, inconsistent WiFi, and employees who needed to simultaneously hold merchandise, a security tag, and a device. Every design decision was shaped by these realities.

I developed the initial brand identity — "LockMES" — combining a lock icon, a scanner illustration, and a trust-building blue palette. After stakeholder feedback indicated a preference for a simpler, more authoritative feel, I redesigned the brand entirely.

The final identity — "Protect It" — used black as its dominant color with a key motif, projecting security and control. I ensured the name was distinctive enough to be found easily among the many apps on employee devices.

The "Protect It" SaaS solution replaced the physical MES binder system entirely. Store employees could scan a product and receive accurate, current tagging guidance in seconds. Corporate could push updates to every store simultaneously. The manager bottleneck was eliminated.

This project taught me that enterprise UX isn't just about the interface — it's about the entire system of people, processes, and tools that the interface sits inside.

Designing the employee-facing app was only half the work. The corporate portal, the update workflow, the device constraints, the stakeholder alignment — all of it was the design. The binder wasn't a bad tool. It was a symptom of a system that had never been intentionally designed. That's what I replaced.