GPS INSIGHT 2021
Activity Feed
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I was the primary designer leading this project in Q3-Q4 2021 ideating early discovery and concepts, presenting regularly to leadership and subject matter experts, and delivering final designs for production.
I worked with multiple cross-functional teams including 2 product managers, a team of engineers, and team members from account management, user on-boarding specialists, and sales engineers.
GPS Insight is a fleet tracking and telematics company that helps businesses track and manage their assets. We sell hardware devices that customers connect to their vehicles to gain actionable and insightful data that we display in our SaaS platform.
The activity feed was a part of a large project working to integrate an old and outdated "legacy" version of our SaaS platform into our new portal so that customers could complete all of their necessary tasks without having to utilize the outdated platform.
This feature shows the history of movement of a particular vehicle or asset (ie trailer, bobcat, etc). The feature is useful to a fleet manager to follow up on customer complaints, any accidents or incidents, or any needed information about where a vehicle in their fleet has been and when.
Project summary
Before
After
Discovery
I wanted to answer the following questions:
- What capabilities does the activity feed in the old portal have?
- What are some common use cases? Edge cases?
- Who is using this product?
- How could the product improve?
- What information is most valuable to a user looking at the activity feed?
Key Takeaways
I performed many stake holder interviews with the product manager, account management, solution engineers, and software engineers - I was able to find answers to my questions and begin defining the problem.
1. Users have a hard time finding the actionable insights that they need to make decisions because of the layout and format
2. Users can not tell visually what happened if there are many points logged in similar areas.
3. Users need more information about what type of event happened at a given point
How might we display the important information in a way that a fleet manager can get an at a glance overview of what happened during a time of interest?
1. Correlate events on the map with what is shown in the activity feed using color, sequential numbering, selection states, and a map pin.
2. Use visual navigation guidelines to show the direction a vehicle of interest was going at a given data point.
How might we give the user insights visually paired with data so that they can dig further into a situation.
1. Build the ability to see time stamps connected to the map pin so that the user can understand the context of what took place.
How might we distinguish event types visually and sequentially in the feed.
1. Allow user to expand and collapse movement segments to see individual data points that were recorded during the trip.
User insights
To get clear on what is needed from this feature, I took user insights from my research and created How Might We and POV statements.
User Goals
Visual Definition
Control Over Data
Streamlined Workflows
Our solution should provide visual correlation between map and feed
Users need the ability to avoid cognitive overload by progressive disclosure fo control over data
Users can perform various tasks without leaving the map or feed
Visual Definition
- The feed correlates visually and numerically with what is on the map.
- Individual data points are clearly defined.
- Sequential ordering can be investigated by selecting points and seeing where they fall within a timeframe.
- Correlation between map and feed also match the timeline giving multiple perspectives of what happened.
Control Over Data
- Progressive disclosure is used in various ways to prevent cognitive overload for the user.
- In the previous design, the user could not drill into specific data points that occurred.
- Now, they are able to see the overall event that took place and research further into movement of an asset by taking action on specific data points.
Streamlined Workflow
- The right drawer becomes a workspace that allows the user complete tasks without leaving their workflow.
- Success messages have links that bring you back to the activity feed you were on.
- Interactions with the map history and timeline are always available.