CHEC (Custom Hardware Electronic Configuration) is a web app for truck equipment manufacturers that enables engineers and technicians to program and test logic, as well as build the electrical systems for on-highway trucks, buses and municipal vehicles, i.e. firetrucks. Programming a vehicle previously took manufacturers weeks, but now with the new CHEC app, it can be accomplished within a day. This project is Daimler’s highest priority software project–with an internal software team that’s helping to revolutionizing vehicle manufacturing.
CHALLENGE
Extremely complicated and fun! My first challenge was tackling the steep learning curve of electrical engineering and truck manufacturing. The second challenge was lack of consistency within the current app, making design and development slow and buggy, and difficult for people to use. There was no design system, no ADA compliance, and no analytics tracking usage, which was a real problem.
APPROACH
I started by creating flashcards to learn the semantics, while conducting a heuristic evaluation and a design audit that helped identify patterns, inconsistencies and UX violations. My findings helped facilitating a value vs. effort exercise that I ran with the project leads. By identifying the challenges, we were able to create a strategy for moving forward.
My weekly product design work was a tricky balance of introducing new design system elements with new features, while retiring design and technical debt, all of which included UX design specifications that identified core requirements, new pattern library elements and possible enhancements. After a few sprints we conducted a workshop with customers to test the new designs and gathered insightful feedback.
RESULTS
Within 6 months the new design system that I led, had almost fully replaced all of the tech debt, which helped improve the apps performance, increased the quality of new features, reduced the number of bugs, and met WCAG AAA color contrast compliance standards. Customers responded with positive feedback about the quick feature releases and the improved usability of the app making it easier and faster for them to do their job. What used to take truck technicians weeks can now be done in a few days saving precious time and money. Daimler recognized our accomplishments and gave the CHEC team an innovation award for product excellence, and improving the build cycle which drives vehicle sales.
