Saga Explore – democratizing data for shippers
- From 2022-08 to 2023-08
- Responsibilites: Discovery, Concept & Visual Design
- My role: Lead Product designer in a cross functional team
![](http://sophiaschyman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/dashboard_mac-uai-258x194.png)
Summary
Transport managers today need lots of data to make the right decisions. “Are we on time?” “Do we utilize trucks in the best possible way?” Problem is that data is scattered in the organization, and often requires a BI specialist to make sense of it. Shipping sustainable is also an intricate problem to solve – today road transport itself makes up for 7% of all global emissions. And the demand for reporting on emission data is constantly increasing.
Saga Explore aims to solve both.
We set out to help users to uncover inefficiencies, but also surface detailed insights on Co2e emissions – and of course – finding the opportunities for emission reduction.
Being inspired by the approach of modern analytics tools, we created a powerful, scalable product that aims to democratize shipping data, putting in the hands of the shippers without hassle.
Problem Space: Research
- Method: Setting up continuus discovery process (I have a goal of a weekly touchpoint with a user or potential user from our domain) activities, like interviews, participating in client meetings, workshops etc.
- Objectives: Mapping needs, desires and frustrations today.
- Output:
- A Discovery backlog mapping opportunities and solutions and research.
- Notion database with latest research, interviews, competitive analysis, results from usability test sessions etcetera.
Solution space example: Flowchart
![](http://sophiaschyman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Flowchart-Q1-uai-258x145.png)
Solution space example: Concept
![](http://sophiaschyman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Relative-uai-258x163.png)
And *drumroll*, some examples of the final design
Saga Explore takes inspiration of modern analytics platforms, like Amplitude and Mixpanel. Powerful, easy to use (but not dumbed down – are users professionals) and scalable to fit an infinite number of shipping setups.
![](http://sophiaschyman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/dashboard_2-uai-258x164.png)
![](http://sophiaschyman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/report-page_tooltip-uai-258x164.png)
![](http://sophiaschyman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/metric_view-uai-258x164.png)
![](http://sophiaschyman.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Relative-uai-258x163.png)
Customer feedback
This is exactly what’s been missing for us! Do you know how much time we spend on building dashboards, just to never look at them again? This makes accessing relevant data so much easier!
– Logistics manager for one of Swedens largest freight companies.
We have many customers who have started to ask for emission reports lately, and it usually takes us a lot of crunching in excel, and on top of that we have to manually create pdf:s to send them. Explore saves us a lot of work.
– Sustainability manager from a large Food and Beverage company.
Takeaways
I was the Product designer in a cross functional team with data scientists, front-and backend engineers, PM and engineering manager. My closest colleagues was the PM and our frontend-designer. The job isn’t just about doing product design, it’s also about creating and maintaining a good team spirit.
This is what I learned:
- Always strive to minimize handover and bridge the gap between code and design as much as possible. Designing chart interaction with Figma is impossible, a close working relationship with the frontend engineers is key!
- Doing usability testing without real data is pointless! A better way of working is to release functionality behind feature flags, and iterate on the feedback from internal users instead.
- If you can’t beat them – join them. The discovery process in a B2B setup is complicated by internal stakeholders gatekeeping the relationship with customers. Always explore alternative ways of gathering customer feedback; like joining meetings, utilizing demo session etcetera! Be creative.