2023
Validation of transits at Brazilian tolls
Overview
The automatic toll pass system is very practical for drivers, but behind the scenes, there is a large team working to validate the traffic that has passed through. My job was to make the lives of these operators easier by transforming their old workspace into a customizable and visually appealing validation screen.
Tools
Figma
Prototypes
Useberry
Tests
Teams
Communication
Azure Devops
Agile
900%
Increase in production speed in cases of breach
150%
Increase in speed in production during general validations
The problem
Validating toll transactions for an automatic toll system was becoming a hassle for the company, as they had a higher number of passes than they could validate. At that moment, 1 employee could perform 3,000 to 5,000 validations per day, so the responsible company had 2 options: hire more employees, which would incur huge costs and create a snowball effect, or improve the system so they could perform the same procedures much more quickly. It was then that they approached me to develop this solution.
Case study
When this challenge came up, I had no knowledge of software for highways, I had several meetings with the stakeholders to clear up doubts and I did my homework to understand how everything worked behind the scenes. After gaining this understanding, I conducted a series of interviews with users, observing how they operated on the "old platform". In these interviews, I was able to understand the operators' tasks and identify many areas for improvement right away.
After the interviews, I started the analysis, mapping the task flow on the old platform and highlighting the main insights from the conversations with users. With this data, I created a service blueprint, understanding the entire flow and identifying improvement opportunities for each agent in the system. I defined the personas and mapped the user journey. With all these processes completed, I reached the conclusion of what needed to be done.
The solution
With the entire process completed, we found that a unified screen with customizable filters would help the validation team’s productivity across all cases and types of anomalies. In the old platform, it was necessary to have up to 3 tabs open to perform queries with different filters, which burdened the work being done.
So the time has come to get down to business, I started with a wireframe to test and understand the best layout for the items and actions that would be taken, and we arrived at this result below.
Based on previous studies, I adopted the 'Z-pattern' as a fundamental element of the application. Thus, we organized the layout as follows: primary actions and information in the top left corner, followed by complementary images of traffic, and, below, detailed information with an expandable table, if necessary.
Having done this, I prepared a test for the users and validated it with the stakeholders. The tests went well; some adjustments were necessary, but the structure was already pleasing to everyone.
High-fidelity prototype
After testing and validating the wireframe, I moved on to the high-fidelity prototype. I implemented the client's branding (the colours were omitted from the portfolio to avoid confidentiality issues) based on a design system, using custom components. I detailed all the information that should be included on the page, and each interaction was planned to be carried out both with a mouse click and through keyboard shortcuts. After prototyping and animation, it was time to conduct new user tests. This time, I identified several pieces of information that I did not previously know, but which were revealed thanks to the tests, allowing for adjustments before development. I made the necessary changes and submitted them for a second round of tests, whose feedback was extremely positive! After that, I sent the project for development and prepared an onboarding for the new platform. The changes were so radical that productivity increased by 900%, so it would not be immediate for everyone to learn how to use it.
Onboarding
Conclusion
This project was essential for my growth as it was the first real case, I worked for many hours in search of the best possible outcome, excited to put all my skills into practice, dedicated to ensuring that the client could return to doing business. And all the effort was rewarded, several features were developed for other departments of the contracting company, in addition to very positive feedback.
Júlio Costa 2024
Brazil