Design Guidelines for Creating a Procurement Platform

Abstract

Procurement of time-limited services amount to a large number of people in Swedish technology industry. Managers look for competence to fill up their teams using a number of available suppliers and their services, depending on their framework agreements. The procurement processes are rigorous and can take both time and effort to complete for every purchased service. In a time when digitisation of services happens in multiple areas, this thesis is about how a similar digitisation could be carried out in this specific field. By carrying out a survey consisting of interviews and benchmarking, a deeper understanding of the current situation was established. System images, user research insights (including personas) and user research was used for eliciting design requirements. These were prioritised for an initial concept and prototype, that was refined in three stages with user feedback or input from the partner company between iterations. The complete design process allowed for exploration of several ideas and led to gaining insight both from user and designer perspectives. Finally, all insights from the thesis work has been compiled into 20 guidelines that specify general design choices which should be considered if a digitisation project is undertaken. These guidelines include descriptions of what they are, how they should be approached and either negative aspects of not following them, or positive aspects of following them. All guidelines have been tied to theory, the user research insights, benchmarking, testing of the prototype, or a combination of all. These guidelines