SmartHaul

During the development of SmartHaul, I began to see myself growing as a designer and product developer. With SmartHaul, I was able to demonstrate my expertise in all aspects of the development timeline - UX research/writing, interface design, product management, and the engineering of the product itself.

The SmartHaul 'loads dashboard' contained more onscreen data than any of our previous builds; maintaining balance and fidelity without overwhelming either user type was the priority. This was a challenging UX to design; the trucking and logistics industry is synonymous with large amounts of data and very little emphasis on design.

Integrating contextual communications between all involved parties during an active load was another priority. A/B testing revealed that users would rather have their messages on a dedicated page.

As a well-oiled machine at this point, we gave ourselves a shorter timeline, a larger scope for the build, and a second developer. SmartHaul was a fast-paced, professional project, and every component of this build put my collaboration skills to the test. As a natural hands-on builder, this project forced me to delegate different aspects of the design and development to other members of the team and the founder.

As a cross-platform web-app with a completely separate mobile experience, we needed contextual alerts to appear in real-time across all devices to allow drivers and shippers to respond promptly.

I solved this problem using a timed event trigger that evaluated the status of a user's most recent notification. This way, SmartHaul had complete flexibility over the notification and the load data. Once the event was triggered, our team could make any necessary changes to a user's notifications and change the status of the load itself. Regarding style, it was important for the contextual alerts to contrast with the rest of the app. Thus, these alerts appear in dark mode on desktop and light mode on mobile.

Throughout this very formative project, I was able to utilize every tool in my tool belt and operate as a leader in ways I had not before. While my title was Development Lead at Platform, it was not until this project that I truly embodied that responsibility and maximized my impact and insights. SmartHaul's design, development and launch was executed in 8 weeks.