Revolutionizing Digital Fleet Management
PixelWave Innovation was conceived to transform the digital narrative of a leading creative agency. Our goal was to blend cutting-edge design with intuitive user experience, crafting an engaging story that resonates on multiple platforms. By integrating advanced digital techniques with creative insights, the project set a new benchmark for interactive brand storytelling.
Employer
Addverb
Date
June 2024
Industry
Creative & Digital Media
Scope of work
Website Design
Product Design
No-code
Introduction: The Big Picture
Addverb’s cutting-edge Fleet Management System oversees 30+ robots, including over 15 Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) like Zippy, Dynamo, Veloce, Fork-lifts, and the newly launched Flow-T—with 10+ variants each to meet diverse warehouse needs. Usually, two or more robot types work together in a warehouse, all seamlessly diagnosed, maintained, tracked, and controlled in real-time via our powerful FMS. Operators can see precise locations, battery health, and even manually control any robot instantly.
TL;DR: Addverb’s smart FMS connects and controls a diverse fleet of intelligent robots in real time—giving operators full visibility and the ability to intervene on the spot for smooth, efficient warehouse automation.
The system’s interactive interface allows dynamic map views, instant alerts with visual and audio cues, detailed robot status panels, and embedded control options — empowering quick, confident decisions and flawless operational flow.
The problem - Setting the stakes
Managing the robotic fleet was a largely manual and inefficient process with several critical pain points:
Difficulty in tracking and maintaining a real-time map of the entire fleet, limiting operators’ situational awareness.
No direct insights into robot errors; users had to log separately into Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) to check faults and troubleshoot, causing delays.
Inefficient and cumbersome processes to add, remove, or edit robots, with a lack of transparent robot status and capability information.
The system’s UX was fragmented and overly customized for separate clients, lacking focus on building a unified, scalable product version.
These challenges culminated in operational inefficiencies, user frustration, and limited scalability, highlighting the urgent need for a unified, user-centered Fleet Management System.
Cast of Characters: Key Users & Stakeholders
View Full User Personas
The quest - Discovery & Insights
Anatomy of existing design
We started our research by diving deep into the current application. This initial "teardown" of the system's structure and features helped us get a clear picture of how people were actually using it. This groundwork was crucial for figuring out which parts of the app to focus on and where we could make the biggest impact.
Design vs development
I also observed how internal operations team managed these challenges daily. Once we understood their pain points, the product manager and I worked closely with the data, and tech team to:
Map the system architecture & identify trackable data points
Understand how data was stored, processed, and refined to ensure we display precise & accurate information so our fleet operators could view actionable insights.
We involved the CEO and management team at every step to secure their buy-in and align product decisions with business goals.
In the end we sat with frontend developers to build a responsive, lightweight, and seamless user experience, prioritising fast load times and smooth interactions, a crucial but often overlooked aspect of B2B fleet management tools.
Map Interaction Issues
Here are brief summaries of the map feedback received from different scenarios and stakeholder perspectives
Operations Team / US Stakeholders
Operators found that the robot icons are hard to differentiate from other map elements and struggled to recognize specific station types, with only charge stations being visually clear. There was confusion around picking vs dropping stations and how selection worked when robots overlapped with stations. Visual clutter, lack of color hierarchy, and unclear station IDs were recurring themes. Suggestions included implementing customizable color options, improving icon clarity, and layered selection for overlapping elements.
Product and Engineering Team
Feedback highlighted that data metrics lacked a consistent color hierarchy, and robot shapes did not match real-world dimensions. The absence of a clear occupancy indicator and standardized map sizes across sites made it difficult to interpret and compare information. Problems with robot and station ID visibility were noted both in 2D and 3D, along with insufficient spatial cues for operator orientation. Team members also pointed out issues with side panel behavior and map legend clarity.
Site Audit Scenarios (e.g. Sundaram Clayton, MRF)
During UX audits, operators were unable to comprehend the new design’s information layout and iconography. They recommended making station IDs more visible, distinguishing physical versus imaginary stations, and representing different robot statuses visually. The feedback emphasized that the current design made error data hard to interpret and required better visual feedback for gates, fencing, and occupancy.
Real-Time Monitoring / Debugging
Users actively monitoring robots found that clicking on robots in motion or stations produced inconsistent results. Robot overlap caused stations to be obstructed or hidden, and payload visualization did not work effectively when zoomed in or out. Operators needed a mechanism to quickly retrieve details for both robots and stations at the same position.
3D Map Scenarios
Switching between 2D and 3D views was ambiguous, making navigation and data transitions confusing. All stations looked alike in 3D, colored status dots and robot IDs were not easily visible, and users wanted more realistic representations of both robots and stations. Fencing, viewing boundaries, and gate behaviors also required better differentiation and clarity.
We FAILED. What's next
These are the reasons why the re-design failed: The design system was not fully robust and crucial interactive elements for the map were left out, making the core functionality difficult to replicate in
Incomplete Design System:
The overall design system lacked provisions for map-specific elements; crucial interactive and visual details for map UX weren’t addressed, leading to disconnect between intended and developed outcomes.
Inexperienced Developer Team:
With only intern developers assigned, the complexity of the design exceeded their skill level. Critical UI/UX nuances were lost or simplified, resulting in diminished usability and fidelity.Loss of Product Leadership:
The product manager left two months into development, leaving gaps in vision, communication, and guidance, which stalled feature delivery and reduced alignment with design intent.Insufficient Feedback Loop:
No real user feedback or actionable data was gathered for the new map UX; previous maps were simple images, failing to inform the redesign or validate user needs through real interactions.Poor Information Comprehension:
Even after conducting UX audits at sites like Sundaram Clayton and MRF, operators struggled to understand the new design’s information hierarchy and interaction flow, showing that core usability goals were not met.
Trying again
The new Version 3 designs mark a significant step forward, built on a stronger design system and enriched with actionable data from recent deployments and user feedback. Unlike previous versions, these designs integrate operator-driven insights and site-specific improvements, targeting pain points around map comprehension, robot visibility, and real-time monitoring. The ongoing work emphasizes flexible layouts, clearer visual hierarchies, and contextualized interactions, ensuring the evolving FMS is not just visually refined but also deeply informed by real operational needs.
Learnings
Designing Version 3 was a humbling lesson in the complexity of building tools for real-world robotic operations. The project reinforced that a robust design system cannot be an afterthought it must be comprehensive, flexible, and granular enough to account for site-specific variations and interaction patterns, especially for dynamic map layouts. Relying solely on the general layout or component libraries led to critical gaps in map-specific states and behaviors, creating disconnects during development.
One of the biggest takeaways was the importance of bridging the gap between design theory and engineering reality. With intern developers and shifting product leadership, it became clear that successful delivery depends not only on thoughtful design but also on capacity building, mentorship, and strong lines of communication between all stakeholders. Regular, structured reviews coupled with real feedback from operators in the field proved invaluable. Direct site audits and hands-on usability testing uncovered hidden friction points that documentation alone could never reveal.
Furthermore, the experience highlighted the risks of designing in a vacuum. Early versions often reflected assumptions rather than ground truth, and without a mechanism to loop actionable insights from deployment sites back into the design process, even the most promising features fell short of real operator needs.
What's for future?
Looking ahead, our commitment is to marry design rigor with operational empathy. The next phase will be characterized by deep, continuous engagement with the people who use and rely on the FMS every day. Usability testing and rapid prototyping will move to the forefront, letting us validate hypotheses early and often before committing to full-scale development.
We aim to extend the design system to specifically address map functionality, state management, and cross-site consistency. Stronger collaboration rituals will be embedded pairing designers closely with experienced developers, product owners, and end users. Future updates will emphasize customizability, context aware information rendering, and seamless transitions between dashboard views, ensuring that both new and seasoned operators can intuitively interact with every aspect of the platform.
Ultimately, the goal is to create not just a visually compelling solution, but a truly usable, resilient, and adaptable system one that evolves with our users and anticipates the needs of new automation environments. By grounding every design choice in real-world usage and feedback, we strive to make each version of the FMS increasingly effortless, efficient, and empowering for everyone on the warehouse floor.
