Shorthaul Case Study

Facilitating construction logistics between truck drivers and project managers.

Construction logistics isn’t something I would consider myself an expert in. By any means. But when I was tasked to come up with high fidelity mock ups for a mobile application called Shorthaul, I ended up looking a lot further into the topic than I ever considered.

Currently, the solutions to logistical issues are all on paper. There’s a ton of materials, signatures, photos, and employees that are hard to keep track of, and a digital solution ensures that everything is properly documented and ends up in the right hands.

The goal of the app was simple: Make it easier for drivers to get credit for their pick ups, and make it easier for construction project managers to keep track of their materials.

You can see there’s very little difference between the V1 and final mocks up, but there are some subtle changes that made all the difference.

The first choice was including the option to change the drivers name and truck number throughout any point in the delivery process. The reasoning behind this is simple. The devices that would be running the app stay in the car, not with the driver. If a driver forgot to change their name on the device when getting into a truck, they would have multiple opportunities to get credit for their delivery. In addition, project managers could be notified if/when drivers switched shifts or trucks.

This was a huge insight, and affected other design decisions, namely the choice to downsize the progress bar. Originally the bar was meant to be an interactive indicator of each journey, but after some testing, we realized that there were stages in which the user wouldn’t be able to go back. We decided to make the progress bar strictly visual, instead of sacrificing consistency and functionality for aesthetic appeal.

I was definitely more independent in this product than anything else I’ve worked on. Typically there’s a few others to bounce ideas off of and geek out with, but keeping myself on track without the motivation of a team was a new challenge.

Finding a narrow problem to solve for a really specific target market is deeply satisfying, because you know the solution can actually make the life of an individual easier. Building a niche product like Shorthaul allowed me to dive deep into an industry I knew nothing about, and made me wonder what other problems are out there waiting to be solved.

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