Revolutionizing Freight Brokerage
A reimagined enterprise freight brokerage experience within the client’s transportation management system.
Our client a Fortune 500 transporation and logistics company
founded on innovation, disruption, and service, working towards
its mission of creating the most efficient transportation network
in North America.
The client envisioned transforming from a traditional trucking
company into a technology-driven leader in logistics.
At the heart of this vision was the creation of an innovative
platform designed to streamline freight management, empower
stakeholders with real-time insights, and drive smarter, more
efficient operations in the evolving logistics landscape.
As part of this modernization effort, I was a key designer
leading the efforts on reimagining the user experience of the
brokerage business operations
Feb 2020 - June 2022
Adobe Illustrator
Zeplin
User testing
Hotjar
A leading fortune 500 Logistics and Transportation Company
(North America)
In the trucking industry, a freight broker acts as an intermediary between shippers (companies that need to transport goods) and carriers (trucking companies or independent drivers). When a shipper has freight to move, they contact a freight broker, who then utilizes their network to identify the best carrier for the job based on factors such as cost, availability, and delivery timelines.
The broker’s role includes finding the right carrier, negotiating rates, and coordinating logistics to ensure that shipments are delivered on time. This process helps streamline communication and enhances efficiency throughout the supply chain.
A fragmented system and manual processes left brokers struggling with inefficiency, missed opportunities, and a steep learning curve, impacting both productivity and revenue
- Freight brokers serve as a vital connection between shippers and carriers, ensuring efficient transportation of goods.
- They manage tight deadlines, negotiate rates, evaluated offers and address challenges such as weather delays and truck shortages.
- This role demands exceptional multitasking, problem-solving, and communication skills to effectively balance the needs of both shippers and carriers.
- Operating in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment, even small mistakes can result in costly disruptions.
When the clients brokerage division recognized the urgent need to modernize its systems, the challenge became clear: deliver a streamlined, scalable minimum viable product (MVP) while developing a future roadmap to redefine the brokerage experience.
As one of the selected designers, I had the exciting opportunity to play a key role in modernizing client’s brokerage systems. With tight timelines and a complex array of workflows, our mission was straightforward: create tools to help brokers succeed in their fast-paced, high-stakes environment.
We embarked on this remarkable journey with a team of talented individuals, working together to bring the MVP vision to life. The goal was to simplify brokers’ work while laying the foundation for a new, game-changing standard in brokerage operations.
The urgency was palpable, and the user experience team was tasked with leading this transformation.
“Brokerage is the art of connecting dots in the chaos of logistics—matching the right shipper with the right carrier at the right time for the right price to keep the world moving seamlessly”
Role of Freight brokers ( Our primary users )
Freight brokers are the unsung logistics heroes, navigating one of the most challenging roles at the organziation—a position marked by high-pressure decision-making, constant problem-solving, and one of the highest attrition rates.
Fig: The Tangled Web of Legacy Systems: Screenshots showing combination of legacy and modern apps being used by freight brokers
We started with a visioning session that brought together leadership and key users to ensure everyone was aligned. The focus was on brainstorming the big picture, identifying key features, and addressing those critical issues that needed change.
By the end of the session, we had developed a clear game plan that outlined what leadership wanted, what users needed, and where the most significant pain points were located. This provided us with a solid foundation to begin modernizing the system and to concentrate on changes that would have the greatest impact.
After the visioning session, it became clear that the brokerage system was fraught with challenges, each deeply intertwined with the daily experiences of its users. The range of issues required a thoughtful and immersive approach. To truly understand the problems at their core, we knew we had to move beyond assumptions and directly engage with those who faced these challenges every day.
Through the visioning session, contextual inquiries, and one-on-one interviews, we gained a clear and comprehensive understanding of the brokers’ pain points, goals, and daily challenges, in form a robust affinity map providing a strong foundation for designing impactful solutions
The focus of our research was a series of over 20 one-on-one interviews with freight brokers. The goal was to gain a deeper understanding of their workflows, challenges, and experiences with existing tools, including competitor platforms. After organizing the findings into an affinity map to identify common themes,
To make informed decisions about improving the brokerage platform, we needed a clear understanding of both the business goals and the user goals from my research. It was essential to ensure that every proposed feature, from automation tools to analytics dashboards, aligned perfectly with the company’s objectives and the daily needs of the brokers.
With the business and user goals in mind, we solidified my design decisions based on key user research insights. Here’s a sample of the breakdown:
We dove headfirst into the brokers’ world, sitting alongside them (they played music so loud while working, which seemed to help them focus, lol) to observe their workflows in action, hear about their daily struggles, and gain insight into what makes their jobs tick. Spending time in their environment gave me a front-row seat to their challenges and frustrations—it felt like stepping into their shoes. By the end of the inquiry session, I felt that my teammate and I had gained a solid understanding of their jobs.
Fig: Pictures from the workshop visioning sessions where we conducted card sorting exercise with the stakeholder to identify major project goals
• Users are required to switch to different applications to complete a single workflow
• Steep learning curve to learn different applications and required constant usage of checklists and cheat sheets
• Their daily day tasks required manual intervention and system lacked automation
• No way to track the progress of a task
• Relied heavily on offline, communications, emails and excel sheets for making and tracking decisions
• No centralized medium to communicate with individuals and groups about freight
• Communication overhead between teams handling different areas of the freight
• Lacked intelligent insights and analytics tools to support negotiation and effective purchasing
• Lack of advanced search and recommendation workflows to support complex workflows
Since the scope and vision of the project were very vast thorough research was required before kickstarting the project.
Visioning session, Contexual enquiry, Interviews
Stakeholder, Freight Brokers, Transportation Managers
It takes forever to onboard new people because nothing is intuitive—we’re relying on cheat sheets and hours of hand-holding
I have do math while dealing with customers to provide update. Wish there was magic calculator that showed us margins
I waste so much time switching between systems just to cover one load—it’s like a scavenger hunt every single day
I make notes on piece paper to keep track of my conversation with the carrier. Sometime I even the loose the paper and scramble for info.
The Hustle and Juggle: What It Takes to Be a Freight Broker?
Bridging Business Objectives and User Needs
How might we streamline workflows to reduce inefficiencies and empower brokers to make faster, data-driven decisions?
How might we design an intuitive platform that minimizes the learning curve and enables new brokers to become productive quickly?
From insights to design decisions
Creating persona and visualizing the sitemap
Early concept sketches for complex solutions
The initial key screens are now ready for usability testing
A top priority: maintaining consistency with the design system and use existing components to enable expedited development
• Improve revenue by optimizing freight coverage.
• Increase operational efficiency through automation.
• Reduce training time and onboarding costs.
• Strengthen competitive edge
with cutting-edge technology.
• Enhance decision-making with actionable analytics and insights.
• Simplify workflows to save time on repetitive tasks.
• Access all necessary tools in one centralized system.
• Reduce reliance on cheat sheets and external tools for daily tasks.
• Make smarter decisions with real-time, data-driven insights.
• Streamline communication and collaboration with shippers and carriers.
Scalable, intuitive platform that streamlines workflows, enhances decision-making, and boosts efficiency.
• Insight: Brokers spend excessive time switching between multiple systems to track and manage loads, leading to inefficiencies and errors.
• Insight: Brokers rely heavily on manual processes, such as emails and spreadsheets, to communicate and make decisions, causing delays and miscommunications.
• Insight: Brokers are doing complicated math while on call and evaluating carrier offers to make quick decision
• Design Goal: Create a centralized dashboard and fully customizable load list that consolidates all critical tools and information into a single interface
• Design Goal: Introduce automation and real-time communication tools to streamline workflows and reduce reliance on manual methods
• Insight: Create a robust, customizable rate calculator to perform quick math in the content of load they are trying to cover and manage
After conducting numerous user interviews and contextual inquiries, as well as analyzing the gathered data, We identified various user roles for the project and created personas in a clear and easily digestible format. Through further synthesis, I was able to outline current workflows and pinpoint areas for automation and exceptions for the minimum viable product (MVP).
Fig: Current workflow diagram showing various touchpoints from different user types
Fig: Information architecture/sitemap creation for the new modern application with streamlined workflows supported by automation, exception and task-based workflows
Fig; User Personas we created based on synthesis
Based on information architecture and design goals we started creating low to mid fidelity concepts for primary use cases.
Key designs: Dashboard, load list and comparision designs
• Lo-fi prototypes were tested with the stakeholders and superusers weekly to get feedback on the functionality, content, and interactivity of the module.
• Moderated User testing - I created usability testing scripts and prototypes for several different workflows and facilitated moderated usability testing sessions with users
• User Acceptance Testing - Before releasing the pilot version we did user acceptance testing with several superusers and mavens to test all the functionality of the module
Throughout the course of the project we conducted several usability testing to validate our solutions
Delivering Delight Through Intuitive Design
We took the ideas from our brainstorming sessions and created medium-fidelity mockups to encourage more detailed discussions about specific requirements and data needs. At this stage, our concepts began to take shape as we started to incorporate conversations about technical feasibility and project timelines.
Users expressed genuine excitement and delight with the new designs, praising the intuitive workflows, seamless integration, and the ability to simplify complex tasks. The updated platform not only met their needs but exceeded their expectations, empowering them to work more efficiently and confidently in a fast-paced environment.
Refined and iterated the design based on user feedback, delivering a polished, user-centered solution ready for implementation.
Created a feedback grid of things that worked, things to change, questions, and ideas. After seeing some common themes, I grouped some clusters into common themes and mapped them based on severity of the issue and frequency of the issue.
Eventhough some user had difficulty understand the new platform and interaction patterns, they were able to complet all the tasks without any issues. Some user expressed that they would use the new platform immediatly.
User were delighted to see the customziation capabilties and clean look and feel compared to their current legacy applictions
Some users expressed discomfort with transitioning to a new system, citing concerns about learning curves and adapting to unfamiliar workflows
We revamped the entire brokerage process, introducing multiple efficiencies and streamlining workflows.
We developed a modern, user-friendly TMS (Transportation Management System) brokerage module that enables freight brokers to shift from reactive decision-making to proactive insights, ultimately accelerating business revenue.
The module was created using an agile approach. We launched a minimum viable product (MVP) version and have since implemented several enhancements over the years.
Fully customizable task list with quick status filters for easy filtering and keeping track of task counts.
Priority-based tasks enable users to focus only on exceptions and let automation do its thing.
One of a kind Rate Calculator
Modern 50/50 panel design allows users to stay in the list view while viewing the details of the freight
Enabling users with only the required information to key decisions and actions and not overwhelming with too much information
Designed a one-of-a-kind custom calculator tailored for brokers, enabling them to quickly calculate margins and market percentages in the context of loads, streamlining decision-making and improving efficiency
Simple and robust insights coupled with freight overview allow users to make financial research on the freight and make more educated financial decisions on freight coverage
As part of this pilot MVP product, we delivered more than 20 features, along with over 500 usability-tested screens, using an agile approach. Over the years, we have gradually developed and released additional non-MVP features. The Lean UX processes and design patterns implemented in this project have established a benchmark and are now being adopted across all of the clients platform products.
Driving Impact: Measurable Results and Transformative Metrics
Voices of Impact: What Users and Leaders Are Saying
This platform is the future of our organizations brokerage, revolutionizing how we manage freight with streamlined processes and real-time data. It’s a game-changing platform that empowers our brokers and positions us as a leader in modern logistics
- Senior Leader
“I 100% like new platform better. It seems a lot less complicated than previous applocation; it’s easier for me to learn and understand and it’s more efficient “
- Super User
Even though it was fast-paced this was an amazing project where I established great trust and relationship with the product team and I was able to practice lean UX.
1. Simplicity is strength
As a designer, we are often lured by attractive, trendy and out-of-the-box designs. But, We must always remember the ‘why’. The primary goal is to understand the user, and their problems and then come up with a design that solves them.
2. Thinking Outside the Box
Sometimes, solving complex problems meant stepping outside the design system and creating new components. We had to innovate instead of sticking to constraints, and it made all the difference.
3. Focusing on the Right MVP
Figuring out the right MVP features was key to showing value upfront. By prioritizing what mattered most, we were able to deliver early wins and set the stage for future improvements.
4. Balancing Ideas with Reality:
While it’s great to think big, we had to balance innovation with what was actually feasible given timelines and technical constraints. This helped us stay practical without losing creativity.
5. Walking in the Users’ Shoes:
Spending time understanding the brokers’ day-to-day struggles reminded me how important it is to design with empathy. It’s the only way to create solutions that truly work for them.
6. Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
The first version is rarely perfect. Testing, learning, and improving as we went helped us fine-tune the designs into something impactful.
7. Staying Flexible
Things change fast in the brokerage world, and we had to adapt along the way. Being flexible allowed us to keep moving forward while staying aligned with evolving needs.
Medium Fidelity - MVP Product Vision
Medium Fidelity - MVP Product Vision
Fig: Proudly showcasing our brokerage platform at the tech expo, representing the innovative work our team brought to life
Fig: Honored to receive recognition from the CIO of client for my contributions to transforming brokerage operations through innovative design
“These are just few of the key features, there were many more down the years and this product evolved at a unbelievable pace”
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