Map Markers
Company: FieldRoutes
Team: Product Manager, Senior Product Designer (✋🏼), Lead Engineer, 3 Senior Engineers, 1 Lead QA and 1 Senior QA, plus a group of Stakeholders
Tools: Jira, Confluence, Miro, Figma
Timeline: 6 months including discovery. 60% allocation.
Overview
FieldRoutes is a SaaS company that focuses on routing and scheduling, however, the actual functionality needed to reflect that sensibility and also be driven by a friendly feeling design, including ADA compliance, while maintaining an informative 'at-a-glance' aspect.
Research & Discovery
We started by defining the key personas interacting with the routing and scheduling map. These included, most commonly, the scheduling administrators who manage the routes and schedules but also the edge case of the technicians.
After speaking with dozens of users, I outlined how users typically interact with the map currently, verifying touch-points where they may encounter pain points, such as finding routes, viewing schedules, identifying which technicians were on which route, determining a timeline of each stop on the route, and making adjustments.
I conducted thorough research on the specific accessibility needs of our user base. This involved reviewing feedback from users with disabilities, understanding the limitations of current accessibility features, and identifying gaps in existing solutions. Other key principals explored were:
✨ Text readability and contrast
✨ Visual accessibility (providing non-visual alternatives for visual elements such as color coding)
✨ Keeping a clear and consistent layout (a logical flow and easy-to-interpret interactions)
Innovative Design Features
The goal was to allow users to toggle between different layers or filters, such as specific routes, specific dates or date ranges, a particular service due, or even a technician assigned. This customization would let users choose the most relevant map for their needs.
Incorporate real-time data (e.g., traffic, delays, overdue payments) to automatically adjust and optimize routes.
Creating a visual scheduling system that’s easy to interpret - using color coding and typography to distinguish between different types of stops (standard service vs a one-time service), but ensuring that these are also supported by text labels.
Provide real-time updates for routes and schedules. Alerts would be accessible for both the technician as well as the residence or commercial residence being services, offering visual notifications, ensuring that all users are informed about potential delays, cancellations, or alternate routes/technicians.
Summary
This project had a lot of moving parts and required some careful planning to really understand the core issues before jumping into the design and development. That’s always such a rewarding process—having to dig deeper and realizing the assumptions the team started with weren’t quite right, but then using that insight to build something that actually solves the problem.
When testing these designs with our users, it was clear that the design really hit the mark in terms of usability and accessibility. There’s something incredibly rewarding about seeing users genuinely excited over something you worked so hard to perfect. The fact that we not only addressed functionality but also made the information easier to digest visually speaks volumes about the attention to detail that was required for this to be a successful solution.
"She has an ability to be comfortable taking limited amounts of information around the business goals and what our users wanted to do and get to work, iterate over time, and deliver really amazing user experiences for not only this invasive scheduling and routing project but also projects revolved around pricing, taxing, and reporting.
In the almost two years working together, I saw growth in Amanda's abilities to conduct field research, present and get alignment on designs, and to top it off she's a tremendous asset for team morale."
– Patrick | Principal Product Manager on this project