VISUAL SYSTEM DESIGN | DATA MAPPING | UX DESIGN

How might we make spaces of mobility and transaction safer, more efficient, and more productive?

Client – Volvo Cars, San Francisco

Duration– 8 weeks, Individual Project

Challenges

Curb space in city centers is a scarce resource. Seaports are under unprecedented pressure with the rise of urban deliveries.

From field observations, private and ride sharing services wait to pick up passengers in bike lanes.

OUTCOME

Identified and delivered a set of vocabulary and visual system–Mobility x Transaction to facilitate products & services through the design of communication.

vocabulary & visual SYSTEM

Mobility

Transaction

Applications

Identified opportunities for a port ecosystem and deployed the the visual system.

Dashboard for a port operator

We identified activities such as uncoupling and combining for the system. For a port ecosystem it would communicate the activity of connecting and disconnecting chassis to a truck. The dashboard also address availability of chassis for logistic truck companies reducing long wait time outside ports.

The language helps to identify and communicate actives such as the loading, unloading, blocked, grooming – a process of ordering and stacking containers, flow of yard trucks inside port warehouses—indirectly accelerating activities for vessels, logistic trucks, and international transactions.

An application for a yard trucker

A yard truck is a truck owned by the port that is driven
all day and night. The language helps yard truckers to identify the characteristics of jobs quickly, locate containers and communicates directions.

Self driving truck
A self–driving truck communicates to the environment.

DISCOVER

Research— A. Curbs (micro lens)

How does a micro space such as a curb orchestrate the flow of people and modes, transitions of zones, exchange of information, objects and friction?

I picked three streets which are unique from each other and that overlapped with San Francisco Curb Study Report conducted by Fehr and Peers for the below streets. Thus my observations were conducted to delve deeper into the report and to look for actions and instances .

Observation

I observed tasks for 3 hours on each street on two different days.

San Francisco

Financial District
Clay Street

Park UPS delivery worker seen unloading goods at the commercial zone (front of the bus stop curb) for 15 mins.

Empty Scans and unloads packages on a cart (last mile).

Cross Crosses the road from the middle of the street.

Block The cart is blocked by the parked vehicles.

Dwell After delivery, driver seen eating inside his truck in the commercial zone.

Data Mapping

An exercise to map my observations and secondary data from the San Francisco Curb Study Report to analyze the frequency and hierarchy of activities.

KEY

MAPS

Research— B. Ports (macro lens)

What are the challenges along the journey of a single container that holds packages coming across continents?

With the operations team flow or a path of a single container and pain-points were mapped. 

TASK ANALYSIS

Challenges

Limited truck tracking system
Unproductive moves, operators irrational in locating container

Delay in arrival of vessels
No signages used inside ports
Long wait lines for third party trucks

Less productive trips
Incomplete information while making appointments

Analysis

Analysis was conducted considering both the macro–port and micro–curb ecosystems. A vocabulary of words discovered led to the idea of building a design language for Mobility x Transaction.

One example from the design vocabulary of mobility and transaction—

Zagging — Quick and sharp moves.

DESIGN

A language that is intuitive and user–friendly. The vocabulary was deconstructed to understand the core meaning. Is loading the same as filling a container or picking up a passenger? Can sending be implied to export, money or information?