OpsFulfillment IA research
Low-fidelity prototypes · synthetic data

Three information architectures for fulfillment

Same synthetic dataset, same stylesheet, same five page slots. The only thing that varies between the columns is the architecture. Start with the side-by-side comparison.

Compare the three homes

Open comparison

The three landing screens next to each other. This is the artifact the 20-minute review runs on.

Concept A · queue-first

recommended shell

Primary object: a work item. Home is a list of buckets of pending action. Unit of action is the batch. Won scenarios S1 (cold start), S2 (100 fills), S10 (mobile).

Concept B · order-first

chosen direction

Primary object: a supplier order. Won scenarios S8 (partial receipt) and S9 (correction). Chosen 2026-08-11 and since extended with a top tab row and a stock surface — see 05-recommendation.md.

Tabs make demand the first tab rather than a banner, which repairs this concept's characteristic failure, and put catalog exceptions in a strip above the tabs rather than inside one. Both are borrowed from the concepts that beat it on those scenarios.

Concept C · exception-first

absorbed into A

Primary object: a stall. Home shows only what is broken or ageing; the happy path lives behind one link. Unit of action is one item. Won scenarios S4, S5, S6 — all at zero clicks, the best score in the matrix.

Reading notes

  • All three render the dataset defined in data.md — 96 paid fills across 15 preparations, 2 catalog exceptions, 3 orders. Different data would invalidate the comparison.
  • One shared stylesheet, no per-concept styling, so the prettiest concept cannot win on looks. The linter fails any page with a <style> block.
  • A lane badge marks anything that requires PR #926's data model and cannot be built on PR #1059's.
  • Every page carries a "what this page assumes" block naming its own weaknesses.
  • All patient names are synthetic, drawn from the register the application's own review fixture uses.
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