Samsara Navigation
Helping truckers find truck stops
3.5M truckers ship 80% of U.S. freight in a $796B market. Samsara Navigation is a map app that provides routes safe for semi trucks.
I drove fuel efficiency, driver safety scores, and delivery time metrics (business need) by designing core features that help truckers find truck stops and track mandatory driving breaks (user need).
Time Team Role
3 Month Contract 4 Designers, 1 PM Product Design
Truck Stop Interviews
At Samsara, truckers are regarded as notoriously difficult to interview. I collaborated with a researcher to form a generative research plan and interview framework. My team interviewed 11 truckers to discover how truckers’ pain points impacted their job performance. Below are insights and hypotheses produced from synthesizing our interviews.
“I’m always dodging things last minute.”
Existing mapping apps are dangerous: Apple and Google maps route through low underpasses, residential streets, and roads unsafe for semi trucks. Truckers constantly deviate from unsafe directions.
Impact: lower fuel efficiency, crashes and reduced driver safety scores.
“Tracking drive breaks is mental gymnastics.”
Truckers follow strict break rules: U.S. law requires truckers to park when any of four break clocks expire. Truckers struggle to track the complex rules of each clock and balance shipment deadlines.
Impact: break violations, late shipments and lay offs.
“I can’t find showers, food… while driving.”
It’s hard to find the right truck stop: Truckers rely on truck stops for food, gas, parking, shelter, and showers. Truckers exit their mapping app to search for truck stops with their preferred amenities.
Impact: added stress, distracted driving, inaccessible amenities.
Ideation
I sketched and wireframed solutions of varying feasibility based on our hypotheses. I proposed three new features that addressed our key insights and related most to Samsara's business goals. Stakeholders loved this solution because it would integrate with existing Samsara technology.
As I worked with my PM on the initial PRD, collaboration with the search team became important. I spearheaded a user flow that brought both teams together to determine how different features of the product would intersect. This flow became a living document adopted by other designers that determined a point of entry on the existing Samsara driver app.
Testing
I led a massive sourcing effort to remotely test prototypes during COVID. My team contacted every truck stop in California, 25 online trucking communities and over 50 individual truckers! Below are notable design decisions from usability tests with 9 participants.