Launch date: January 1, 2024

Live at: https://www.smarthaul.ai/

Role: Development Lead, UX designer/writer

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CONTEXT

It was during SmartHaul's development that I began to see myself growing as a designer and product developer. I had been drawing from previous experiences and projects to site how my failures/shortcomings may have led to my success on the subsequent project, and SmartHaul felt like a different experience entirely. With SmartHaul, I was able to demonstrate my expertise in all aspects of the development timeline - UX research/writing, Interface design, product management/timeline and the engineering of the product itself.

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SmartHaul's loads page 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.

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Integrating contextual communications between all involved parties during an active load was another priority. While this is mocked up as replacing the current load, A&B testing revealed that users would rather have their messages on a dedicated page.

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‍CHALLENGES

Since we were 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. I am naturally very hands-on and like to be in control of as many aspects of development as possible. This project forced me to delegate different aspects of the design and development to other members of the team and the founder.

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As a cross-platform web-app with a completely separate mobile experience, we needed contextual alerts to appear in real-time across all devices. The product needed real-time contextual alerts to allow drivers and shippers to respond in real-time, since the nature of the industry is very fast-paced.

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This was a uniquely challenging problem that I solved using a timed event trigger that evaluated the status of a user's most recent notification. I chose this solution so that we would have complete flexibility over the notification and the load data.

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Once that event was triggered, we are then able to make any necessary changes or updates to a user's notifications and change the status of the load itself. Regarding style, I wanted the contextual alerts to contrast the rest of the app. Thus, these alerts appear in dark mode on desktop and light mode on mobile.

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Speaking of contrast shifts, we made the choice to make the mobile experience entirely dark mode. Since the primary mobile user is the driver, I wanted a solution that helped eliminate eye strain, and user research revealed that a dark mode mobile product would be more attractive and easier to use.

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LEARNINGS

As I said above, this was one of my most formative projects, not because of my shortcomings, but because of my successes. I was able to utilize every tool in my tool belt and operate as a leader in ways I haven't before. While my title was Development Lead, it wasn't 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.

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