UI Design · mroads · 3 months · shipped to production
Android app and web portal for a live sea port access management system. Entry processing fell from around 30 minutes to under two. Over 10,000 Play Store downloads.
[ 01 · The brief ]
A queue at a port gate is a cost with a meter running.
Access to the port was permit-based and paper-verified. Drivers queued, officers checked documents by hand, and every step was a place for the process to stall.
The system had to work at a gate: outdoors, in a hurry, on cheap Android hardware, for people who would not be trained on it.
[ 02 · Process ]
What I did
- Designed the driver-facing Android flow around a single scannable credential
- Designed the officer web portal for permit issuing, verification and exception handling
- Built a design system sized for outdoor legibility and gloved, one-handed use
- Specified states for the failure cases that actually happen at a gate: no signal, expired permit, wrong vehicle
“Entry processing: from roughly 30 minutes to under 2.”
Measured outcome, production
[ 03 · Findings ]
What moved the number
Nearly all the time saving came from collapsing verification into one scan and moving exception handling off the critical path. The officer no longer reads; they confirm.
Designing for the gate environment — glare, gloves, one hand, no patience — mattered more than any visual refinement.
[ 04 · Outcome ]
What changed
The system is live at the port and the app is publicly downloadable. The processing time reduction is the client-reported figure post-deployment.
Constraints from the physical environment beat aesthetic preferences every time. Design for the glare.
Reflection