YMS Dashboard Redesign

Redesign of FourKites' Dynamic Yard dashboard to enable faster task assignment and better task tracking.

Role

UX Designer, Visual Designer

Timeline

Oct. 2023 - Jan. 2024

Responsibilities

User Research, Wireframing, User Testing, Visual Design

Team

Product Manager, Front-End Developer

Project Overview

Goal

I designed a dashboard that would served as a command center for our primary users. The redesigned dashboard communicates key information quickly, and allows users to more easily take action. Reducing time on task and the number of operational errors made due to missing information.

Contextualizing the Issue

A Yard Management System (YMS) oversees the movement of trailers, containers, and other assets within a warehouse or distribution center's yard.The existing dashboard suffered from cluttered interfaces with limited customization, inadequate display of real-time information, and a lack of call to action opportunities. In addition to the goal of creating a better experience for the user, we redesigned the YMS dashboard using the design system of the larger platform to create a move unified experience.

Previous UI

User Research

User Overview

The Yard Manager’s main job is to orchestrate the movement of trailers within the yard, so they can be loaded, unloaded, and picked up efficiently throughout the day. Yard managers need to move quickly to keep pace with the flow of operations and that includes assigning move requests to the tow truck drivers that move the trailers. Depending on the size of the yard and the volume of shipments, yard managers can send out between 50-80 move requests per day.

User Needs/ Issues

But no matter how quickly the Yard Manager needs to move, the spotters aren’t always able to move as quickly. This delay in execution leads to a bottleneck of requests and a lack of visibility to the status of move requests often leads:

Delayed or Uncompleted Move Requests
Yard Managers Cancelling Move Requests
Spotters Rejecting Move Requests
Double-Booking - assigning the same move to two spotters.
Over-reliance on Manual Check Calls Between Spotters and the Yard Manager

Solution Ideation

Addressing the Issue

To solve the problem yard managers were having with move requests, I created a widget that tracks the yard manager’s active move requests sortable by status and age and has an embedded call to action button. After working with the engineering to confirm dashboard would updated in real-time, we were confident this widget would allow yard managers to more easily ensure move requests are being completed and identify stagnate requests that they need to take action on. Helping to:

Reduce the number of canceled and reassigned move requests
Reduce the time yard managers spend managing existing move requests

Prototype & Testing

User Testing

Due to limited availability of potential users and the limited bandwidth of our design team, we were not able to run a usability test. If we had been given the opportunity for user testing, we would have conducted a moderated usability test, asking users to navigate our prototype, measuring how long it took and how many clicks it took for them to find key metrics and execute standard processes.

Instead we got the opportunity to present our prototype to users and gather feedbacks as we walked through potential use cases. While not as detailed as a usability study, these feedback sessions were informative and I used this feedback to update the dashboard design.

For example, I limited filtering functionality to a smaller section of widgets on the dashboard. This change reinforces the dashboard’s primary use case of providing data for managing performance in real-time, and deemphasized the dashboard’s use for historical analysis.
I also removed the ability to apply filters to individual widgets. Initially designed to increase the range of data a user could access from the dashboard. Individual widget filters created confusion as users had reestablish context for the data they were viewing as they jumped from widget to widget.

Iteration

View The Prototype

Conclusion

I incorporated the insights gained from prototype presentations and the final version dashboard received overwhelming positive feedback. The yard managers I spoke to were confident that they would be able to created move requests faster and more easily track move requests they’ve created. The next step is to partner with engineering to build this dashboard in the platform and allow our users to test the dashboard in field.

Key Learnings

Having a visibility to a log of tasks increased the user’s confidence in their own understanding of what’s going on at any given time. This confidence enables users to move quickly, avoid redundancies and easily spot mistakes.
Users focused on execution and managing operations were overly burdened by dashboard functionality that meant for historical and comparative analysis. Separating those functions makes things clearly for operational users, like yard managers.