BearingPoint - Client Public Sector

Waterway navigation

my role

UX Design Consultant

overview

BearingPoint is a global management and technology consulting firm that helps businesses navigate the complexities of digital transformation. User experience (UX) design is an important area of expertise and complements the companies’ broader consulting services aimed at creating efficient, innovative solutions for clients. The creation of intuitive, user-friendly interfaces drives innovation and enhances customer satisfaction.

As a UX Design Consultant, I led the design of a navigation solution for inland waterways for a logistics and transportation client. The project involved close collaboration with researchers, business experts, and product owners. The goal was to address key pain points identified through customer research by delivering a high-fidelity prototype ready for development.

timeline & status

2018 - 4 months

applied skills

UX Design, User Flow Design

UI Design, Rapid Prototyping

Data Visualization

industry

Consulting

Public Sector

Transport

outcome

The final product was a high-fidelity prototype for a comprehensive waterway navigation interface. It enabled efficient route planning, live water level monitoring, and optimized stop scheduling, significantly improving planning security and operational efficiency for the client.

DISCLAIMER: Due to the project's Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), the designs have been altered to protect the client's business interests.

Streamlined user flows and HCD approach for basic usability

The necessity for an effective design stemmed from substantial user feedback gathered over 2 months by the research team. Feedback highlighted the critical need for a streamlined, reliable navigation system.

Customer

Skipper

We lack planning security due to unpredictable water levels. No digital solution is in place, we do manual calculations.

Customer

Owner waterway transportation

The current system requires excessive manual input and offers unreliable data.

Customer

Manager shipyard

Currently it is too much effort to manually calculate appropriate water levels to advise ships to take or avoid certain routes.

Route planning only possible with high manual effort

The main challenge was to design an interface that simplified complex data and process handling. With a lot of manual calculations to fulfill a user's JTBD, a new solution with an intuitive user experience that facilitates with quick and easy workflow solutions was needed.

Three key problems

unpredictable water levels

Users needed real-time water level data to plan routes efficiently. Those should be easily readable in an interface and well understood also by new and inexperienced staff.

administrative burden

The current process involved manual data entry and navigation adjustments, which were time-consuming and error-prone.

lack of transparency

Users struggled with unreliable data, making it difficult to ensure timely and efficient deliveries. A solution/ interacted was needed to consolidate reliable data and aggregate them to a user-friendly level.

Multiple design challenges ahead

In this rather non-technical business, one design challenge was to listen to the target user and design interfaces that are easy to "de-code". That also meant, that new mental models were introduced. Simultaneously, existing mental models needed to be transferred to the new interface and to the digital world.

uxd in old business

In order to come with a meaningful interface, the user insights have been taken up and user-friendly end-to-end flows were drafted with a strong focus on edge cases. The design approach followed four pillars

1. Requirement analysis

With a lot of stakeholder involved and upfront customer research conducted, the main goal of the requirement analysis was to “make sense” of the insights, so that they can be used for later meaningful prototypes. For that, affinity mapping has been used to cluster topics on Information Architecture re-design/ set-up and Dashboard structure and sitemap, which are the basis for the later UX design stages.

Information Architecture (IA) included the As-Is features that were mandatory for integration from legacy, as well as guiding principles for the IA and it’s target design considerations.

The dashboard and site structure clustered main pillars of the target dashboard, elements and components to be used with their respect to performance, Branding aspects as well as the customer voice necessary features on dashboard structure and flow of work.

2. Introduction of Mental Models

Prevailing mental models for navigation were taken as a basis to create a familiar and intuitive user interface. Many people associate B2B applications to B2C applications in terms of grade of experience and have expectations towards user behavior. This is especially true for navigation/ transportation apps/ web applications.

For this reason, the main interface for route planning were considered with the behaviors relating to navigation apps for start/end-point entry, stop planning and view-back on entered data.

In addition, advanced settings were centrally structured and emphasis was put on side-by-side placement of map and result list.

3. Lo-fi Prototyping

Low-Fidelity prototypes facilitated discussions around the visualization of end-to-end scenarios, from starting the route planning - either in a harbor or a river mark - to calculating in restrictions, water levels and breaks.

It was important to highlight the impact when planning in stops/ breaks on the UI for route planning. water level changes as well during off-times as well as facilities at the stops need to be visually highlighted.

Lo-Fi Prototype of water navigation interface

4. Stakeholder Feedback

In order to make use of early feedback and in order to refine the prototype in an early phase of product development, where costs of changing are comparatively low, internal stakeholders were involved in small usability testing sessions.

The sessions revolved around the testing of the information architecture, not visuals, and were conducted in small groups and based on interactive lo-fi prototypes only.

The outcome was an interface that was ready to go into Hi-Fi prototyping and discussion with developer teams.

Use of design principles

The visual design incorporated principles of visual hierarchy, consistency, contrast, and proximity to improve usability

Style guide

When it comes to the UI Design of the new interface, a style guide was created based on the future brand with its values that focus on meaningfulness towards waterway navigation and make the interface personal and identifiable, instead of just creating “another” useful interface with random colors.

The style guide also included waterway-specific iconography, which I have designed based on existing mental models in waterway navigation. The style guide was later used in all hi-fi creation processes.

Simplified Route Planning

Before: The route planning was done manually without the help of important real-time data aggregated for the users, so it was difficult to get the job done.

After: Implemented a clean, minimalistic design with clear visual cues and intuitive controls, enabling users to plan routes efficiently. The interface is primarily optimized for tablets for skippers for the use on-the-go.

Hi-Fi Prototype of route planning home screen

Hi-Fi of the route planning - adding a stop

Live Water Level Monitoring

Before: Users had to manually check water levels from multiple sources.

After: A real-time water level diagram got introduced, which integrates directly into the route planning interface, allowing for quick and informed decision-making. Water levels are shown along the water route. In addition breaks/ stops are considered on the time axis, allowing precise planning for optimal shipping route optimization.

Multiple features on a new UI

Ranging from Route planning to stop/ break planning and water level diagrams, the interface offered customer-requested features that were tested and iterated on multiple times.

Route Planning interface

For efficient waterway shipment, a clean and user-friendly interface serves as a guide to skippers on-the-go. For this reason, the main use-case: tablet has been chosen. However shipyard managers have also access over a web interface. For tablet, accessibility was the guiding design principle.

Desktop showing route planning home screen

Tablet showing the route planning - adding a stop

Tablet showing the route planning - route overview

Tablet showing the route planning - highlighting first section of the route

Communicate effectively and argue for mental models

Not only is effective communication important, when moving "physical" projects to the digital world, but also an adherence to existing mental models. More Iterations in the design process might be helpful here to overcome potential constraints.

Effective Communication

Managing feedback from non-UX colleagues highlighted the importance of clear communication. It was essential to bridge the gap between different terminologies and methodologies.

Adherence to Mental Models

Ensuring the design adhered to established UX/UI mental models was crucial for creating a recognizable and user-friendly interface.

Iterative Design Process

The iterative approach, incorporating regular stakeholder feedback, was vital for refining the design and addressing unforeseen challenges.

Waterway navigation

my role

overview

timeline & status

applied skills

industry

outcome

context

User-Centric navigation system

Streamlined user flows and HCD approach for basic usability

Skipper

Owner waterway transportation

Manager shipyard

the problem

Navigating Complexity

Route planning only possible with high manual effort

Three key problems

unpredictable water levels

administrative burden

lack of transparency

my approach

step-by-step forward

Multiple design challenges ahead

uxd in old business

1. Requirement analysis

2. Introduction of Mental Models

3. Lo-fi Prototyping

4. Stakeholder Feedback

key visuals

new product & new interface

Use of design principles

Style guide

Simplified Route Planning

Live Water Level Monitoring

final designs

Greenfield approach with new UI

Multiple features on a new UI

Route Planning interface

retrospective

Lessons learned for the future

retrospective

Lessons learned for the future

Communicate effectively and argue for mental models

Effective Communication

Adherence to Mental Models

Iterative Design Process