UX/UI lead – Marine Technology
SaaS for the shipping industry
What is Sea
Role: Lead UX Designer
Platform: Sea/ by Maritech Operations and Contract Saas Web Applications
Focus: Design and implementation of key features for operational and contract management tools.
Overview: My first role at Sea/ by Maritech involved working on their operations application, which enables users to track vessel progress, delays, incurred costs, and record P&Ls. The primary focus was leading the design of the flagship COA (Contract of Affreightment) feature, allowing users to record and track delivery contracts over time. This year-long, end-to-end project included discovery, ideation, research, design, testing, and delivery, culminating in a shift to event-driven architecture for real-time data updates.
After successfully delivering the COA feature, I transitioned to lead the design for Sea/’s contract management application, Sea Contracts. This application supports bi-party contract negotiation and recording, facilitating edits and approvals. My work focused on redesigning and rebuilding the history and audit sections to handle the complexities of shipping contracts and legacy code.
Key Contributions:
- COA Feature Design: Led the design of the COA feature, a flagship addition to the operations application, ensuring comprehensive tracking and recording of delivery contracts.
- End-to-End Project Management: Managed the project through all phases—discovery, ideation, research, design, testing, and final delivery—over a year-long period.
- Event-Driven Architecture Implementation: Facilitated the transition to an event-driven architecture to provide real-time updates, enhancing data accuracy and timeliness.
- Sea Contracts Redesign: Led the redesign of the history and audit sections within the contract management application, addressing complexities and improving usability.
Challenges & Achievements:
- Complexity Management: Navigated the complexities of divergent shipping contracts and legacy codebase to redesign and rebuild the history and audit sections within the contract application.
- Collaborative Development: Worked closely with product and tech teams to align design and technical implementation, ensuring a seamless user experience.
- R&D Cycle Participation: Joined the contract negotiation/recording application team at the start of an R&D cycle, leading to a strategic redesign and rebuild of critical application sections.
This case study highlights my ability to lead comprehensive design projects, collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, and drive significant product enhancements in complex, data-driven environments.
Initiating the discovery process for the COA feature in Sea Ops
Understanding the Problem:
In my UX career, I have sought to work on complex applications that handle large amounts of data within specialized domains. It’s crucial to understand that complex does not have to mean complicated. Here’s how we initiated the discovery process for the COA (Contract of Affreightment) feature in Sea Ops, using structured exercises to simplify the application’s complexity.
Mapping the Happy Path:
As Maritech is a subsidiary of Clarksons PLC, we had direct access to users and business stakeholders. Collaborating with the project manager, we conducted user interviews to understand how COA fixtures were currently recorded (mainly through emails and spreadsheets) and to map out the processes driving the desired user journey. These insights helped us define what an optimal experience would look like for our users. Initially, we focused on mapping the core user journey—the “happy path”—and later addressed the “unhappy paths” to ensure all scenarios were covered.
Forming a Structure for the Feature:
We employed the “Stimulus, Intent, Action, Success” exercise to follow the flow of a user journey:
- Stimulus: What initiates an interaction with the software.
- Intent: What users intend to do at that stage.
- Action: The actions and inputs required to achieve their goals.
- Success: What successfully completing that task looks like.
After defining these actions and interactions for all paths, we began understanding the information architecture of the feature. We grouped similar components together, organized these components into sections, and wrote clear intentions for each section to ensure data was organized purposefully.
Results:
This structured approach facilitated a deep understanding of user needs and interactions, leading to a well-organized and user-friendly COA feature. The transition to event-driven architecture allowed for real-time updates, enhancing the accuracy and timeliness of data, and ultimately simplifying the overall user experience.
Final COA Screens
Understanding the Problem:
In my UX career, I have sought to work on complex applications that handle large amounts of data within specialized domains. It’s crucial to understand that complex does not have to mean complicated. Here’s how we initiated the discovery process for the COA (Contract of Affreightment) feature in Sea Ops, using structured exercises to simplify the application’s complexity.
