Mira POS
Designing a flexible point of sales system to support highly customisable products within a complex retail ecosystem.
Retail , South Africa, UAE, Poland, Australia - 2024
About the project
Mira's POS was designed from the ground up to handle complex, made to order products with multiple variants, while seamlessly integrating into a broader product ecosystem. From custom product configuration to checkout, order management, and post purchase flows, the system supports both sales staff efficiency and real world retail edge cases.
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Challenges
The Initial Hurdles
Designing for complexity without overwhelming the user was the core challenge. Products weren't simple SKUs; they were fully customisable combinations or size, materials, finishes and fabrics, requiring an intuitive user experience to build orders quickly and dynamically.
At the same time, the system needed to support a wide range or real world retail scenarios: layered discount structures, split payments, refunds across multiple payment types, exchanges and returns, quotes, delivery logistics, and cash handling. Balancing this operational depth with speed and clarity at point of sale was crucial.
Approach
I approached the project by breaking it up into modular flows, ensuring each part of the experience (from product configuration to payment, and from opening of a user's shift to cash up) felt manageable and intuitive.
Special focus was placed on progressive disclosure, allowing users to engage with complexity only when necessary. I prioritised clarity in cart building, flexibility in discount application, and robustness in edge case handling such as refunds, exchanges, and cash discrepancies. The result was a system that supports both quick transactions and a more involved, consultive sales process.
Key Takeaways
This project reinforced the importance of designing for real world complexity, not ideal scenarios. A successful POS system needs to be both powerful and forgiving, capable of handling edge cases without breaking the user's flow.
It also really highlighted the value of full-systems thinking, designing not just individual screens but how multiple flows connect across the full lifecycle of a sale, from initial quote to post-purchase support, linking in with the ERP system seamlessly.
