Project Overview

A fleet operations platform for a taxi company, built from scratch. I was responsible for the product end to end — interface architecture, design system, and user validation — before handoff to a third-party development team.

Challenge

The client needed an operations platform built from zero: no existing system, no design foundation. The external development team needed confidence that the proposed decisions were sound before committing to implementation. Unconventional choices had to hold up with real users, not just be argued internally.

Design & Design System

I designed the platform interface from the ground up, including the design system that underpinned it — defining the component library, visual language, and interaction patterns. I aligned the design with stakeholder requirements through an iterative cross-functional process until the interface was ready for testing.

Usability Testing

I ran 7 moderated sessions with real users over video call, testing interactive Figma prototypes across multiple platform scenarios. Two issues surfaced that wouldn't have been caught in internal review. First, table row separation was invisible to users — not a contrast failure by spec, but a real one: taxi company workstations run low-contrast monitors, and the subtle dividers simply disappeared on their screens. Second, the vehicle onboarding flow was wrong by assumption: I'd designed an 'Add' button for entering cars one by one, but every user expected a bulk import flow — uploading a pre-filled Excel template. That's how fleets actually work.

Validating the unconventional

Document upload sections in the platform are long vertical pages — collapsing them into tabs wasn't an option, since the top-level navigation already used tabs. Adding a second tab layer would've created a nested navigation mess. Instead, I designed a fixed bar at the bottom of the screen: switching items scrolls the page to the corresponding anchor point, letting users jump between document blocks without losing context. A similar concern applied to the fixed Save and Cancel buttons that appear at the top of the screen when editing a page — it wasn't obvious whether users would notice or understand them. Both patterns were tested under the same conditions. Both passed the 5-second test across all respondents without prompting — back-office staff read them intuitively and completed every scenario. That result was the evidence needed to present the solutions to the development team and stakeholder with confidence.

Impact

The interface proved usable and intuitive with real users — including design decisions that had been disputed internally. Contested choices were perceived as obvious in actual use. Test results gave the external development team concrete evidence to implement the proposed solutions as designed, without pushing back for revisions.