FedEx Address Book

Tank Design · 2022 · Senior UX Designer

I led the usability research that surfaced what was actually broken in FedEx’s address book, and the redesign that followed — a unified cross-platform experience serving 220+ countries, with a spec-ready handoff engineering could build without interpretation.

FedEx Address Book redesign showing contact list, import flow, and address form across multiple screen states

Years of friction. One clean tool.

Background

FedEx’s address book is one of the most-used tools in their shipping ecosystem, relied on by enterprise shippers managing thousands of contacts. It hadn’t been redesigned in years and the problems had compounded.

The legacy address book had known usability issues, but no one had a clear picture of how they connected or which users were most affected. The same tool serves an enterprise shipper with thousands of contacts and a retail user shipping twice a year.

My role

I led the usability research that surfaced what was actually broken, and the redesign that followed. Five clear patterns became the organizing logic: modernize, clarify, anticipate, simplify, flex.

Research, not assumptions.

The legacy address book had known usability issues, but no one had a clear picture of how they connected or which users were most affected. Before designing a solution, we had to understand the real scope of the problem.

That meant starting with research, not assumptions. The same tool serves an enterprise shipper with thousands of contacts and a retail user shipping twice a year.

Legacy FedEx Address Book with annotated usability issues including dated layout and unhelpful errors — Legacy experience: years of complexity without a cohesive redesign.

Five clear patterns in how users were struggling.

Research surfaced five clear patterns in how users were struggling. Those patterns became the organizing logic for the redesign: modernize, clarify, anticipate, simplify, flex.

Affinity mapping board grouping interview observations into research themes for FedEx Address Book — Affinity mapping: clustering observations into the five themes that drove the design.

Small interaction. High frequency. Get the details right.

The work focused on reducing steps for the most common tasks while keeping edge cases reachable. Address entry is a small interaction with high frequency. The details matter more than they look like they should.

Redesigned FedEx Address Book landing page with clean contact list, filters, editable columns, and batch actions — Contacts landing page: modernized list with filters, editable columns, and direct ship action.

Redesigned create-contact flow with verified address entry, recipient details, and tagging in one focused dialog — Create flow: one focused dialog, no detours.

Tag views interface allowing enterprise users to organize thousands of contacts into custom labeled groups — Tag views: enterprise-grade organization for thousands of contacts.

Filtering and search interface for FedEx Address Book contacts including location, tag, and recent activity filters — Filters: search, refine, and act in fewer steps.

Outcome

A unified cross-platform experience serving 220+ countries, with a spec-ready handoff engineering could build without interpretation.

research themes shaped every downstream design decision.

220+

countries served by the unified cross-platform experience.

Spec-ready

handoff engineering could build without interpretation.

Next project Forrester →

Let’s make something work.

Boston & remote · Open to full-time & contract

will.a.bruno@gmail.com