This case study is currently a work in progress
But feel free to browse through some snippets of my work from my time at Intoglo.
Improving visibility and control over the supply chain
Project Type
Role
Duration
Team
Sudharshan (PM), Bharani (CTO), Lugman (SWE)
MY RESPONSIBIITIES
Building Intoglo's Desktop Experience from Scratch:
EARLY CONCEPTS 1 & 2
The need for a layout that accommodates more shipments and enables easier scanning of specific attributes when filtering led us to explore alternatives
Let's keep it simple… or at least try to
In order to address the previously identified issues, I proposed an alternative. This time, based on the existing knowledge of users and their familiarity with Excel, which resulted in a data table that mirrors this experience.
As a starting point, this concept was highly valued by the PM and the CTO for its simplicity, capacity to display more shipments and the convenience it offered in filtering and sorting based on individual needs.
Simplicity came with trade-offs, and what initially seemed like a straightforward solution proved to be more complex than anticipated.
As we explored the specifics of this design further, a new issue surfaced. Intoglo uses Vizion API for container tracking that provides tracking data in the form of milestones. In the previous version (early concept 1), we mapped critical milestones from Vizion to the progress bar displayed on the All Shipments page of a particular shipment to illustrate the tracking updates. (see image below)
Now Vizion consolidates 90,000 milestones into a unified format, ensuring that end users receive consistent and standardized milestones regardless of the carriers handling their shipments.
The challenge lay in the fact that some carriers provided more milestones than others, making milestones a misleading indicator of progress on the 'All Shipments' page (as illustrated in the example below).
A more clear depiction of the time left until final delivery.
To address this, we decided to use the final estimated delivery date as the endpoint for the progress bar, with the current date representing the point on the bar. While this wasn’t a flawless solution, since shipment durations varied, these variations weren’t significant, as all shipments were from India to the USA, with the difference between the longest and shortest delivery times being just a couple of days. Therefore, this method provided a more accurate representation of the remaining time until arrival compared to our previous approach.
Once the approach for displaying progress was finalized, we shifted focus to determining which data should appear in the table.
The absence of a shared decision-making framework left us stuck in a repetitive cycle of endless iterations, ultimately leading to no clear progress.
Each iteration and stakeholder feedback session brought new changes: adding or removing data based on varying opinions. This cycle eventually slowed progress as we constantly adjusted the content.
Bringing in various perspectives to gain clarity
To address the aforementioned problem and keep things moving forward, I invited stakeholders to rank the attributes based on priority. This gave us a clear sense of what needed to be included. Throughout this prioritization process, my role was to educate stakeholders on the value of progressive disclosure, emphasizing that the main table should only contain details that help users easily identify a specific shipment and navigate to its details page.
Shipment Details Page
At the same time we began defining how the shipment detail page for a particular shipment would look like. This page would house all the information for that particular shipment. Before I joined Intoglo, the PM had already created an initial iteration for this feature. I proposed an alternative design, and during our meeting, it was made clear that we were running out of time and needed a quick solution without overthinking the options.
A Desktop Pane designed to fit the mobile screen will save us a lot of time + effort, while ensuring a consistent UX across different platforms.
Why not use my version: a side pane, but design it in a way that it could also function as a full-screen pane on mobile? This approach would not only maintain a consistent user experience for shipment details across devices but also streamline development by reusing the same design for both desktop and mobile interfaces.
And thats a wrap… or maybe not?
Ultimately, this approach allowed us to hand over the work to engineering ahead of schedule. We then finalized the interactions, variants, and were prepared for the dev handoff. Below are the screens I produced.
I facilitated meetings to provide continuous feedback to the engineering team, helping prioritize tasks and ensuring they knew what to focus on to stay aligned with project timelines and priorities.
Due to logistical complexities, additional coordination with trucking companies, and ongoing refinements in final destination delivery date predictions, estimates were often inaccurate, leading to client frustration and claims of Intoglo's lack of accountability.
Until now, when a user booked a shipment, Intoglo would estimate the final delivery date to the last-mile location using a specific logic. However, the confirmation of pick-up by trucking companies and final delivery was typically decided much later, once the vessel's arrival at the destination port was imminent or confirmed.
In the past, Intoglo would predict the final delivery date and present it at the time of booking. However, due to the complexities of logistics, the coordination with trucking companies, and the team still refining the logic for final delivery date predictions, these estimates were often inaccurate. This led to users questioning Intoglo's reliability, as shipments rarely arrived within the provided delivery window.
The rest of this case study is still in progress.
Basically how we went from:
The images below represent the final outcome.
User Research 1
User Research 2
Design Opportunity
Ideation
Wireframing
Looking to chat?
Get in touch with me on keenan11@uw.edu