Traffic management SASS application Design System
Unfortunately I can not name this company but they develop some of the most advanced traffic management systems on the planet.
I was asked to consult on the development of a new SASS offering for smaller cities and towns.
This meant guiding a huge engineering team in the redesign of every aspect of the system to work within a web app environment.
The challenge
Seventeen independent applications which had to work seamlessly together using a single interface and User experience.
The users of this system would need to be able to manage multiple screens across many different parts of the application at the same time. It had to work on mobile and it had to work on huge wall screens as well as stretch across multiple monitors or just one laptop screen. Hundreds of individual screens, thousands of cameras, sensors, signals, and signs to control as well as integrate with emergence services and town planning.
User focus would change during the processes so each application needed to be adaptive and depend on user needs.
We needed to understand the user needs so extensive research was done to map out these processes and we had to create a design system which could manage all these existing requirements and become a foundation for the future.
Implementation
The front end was to be built in React so the MUI design system was used as a basis for initial development.
It soon became clear that this would need an extensive overhaul and the addition of hundreds of custom components in order to meet the project requirements. As well as being a guide for developers on the front end it was also used to build working prototypes for user testing so most components had to have interactions applied to them.
Zeplin was used to push releases to the engineering teams and to supply a detailed set of design guidelines to the client for signoff.
Storybook was used as a component repository by the engineering team so Zeplin offered good integration with this at the time.
Results
The design system was completed within four months and the product build will be finished in early 2024.
The Design system has allowed a degree of UX and UI consistency not previously possible and a speed of front-end build which has now made this best practice within the organisation.
They have a system and a process which can now be rolled out across other products.
If you would like to talk…
