A scalable User Access and Location Management experience for ShipperGuide - an optimized shipping operations software platform for shippers.

Senior Product Designer • 2024

Research • UX/UI • Design System • Interaction Design

Summary

ShipperGuide platform helps enterprise shippers manage their freight operations through procurement, tendering, booking, and analytics.
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Get to know ShipperGuide ➚

In order to expand its capabilities and find new opportunities, I identified, scoped, and designed a scalable User Access & Location Management system that addressed enterprise needs while positioning ShipperGuide competitively in the TMS space.

The challenge

I first joined the ShipperGuide team and I wanted to get as familiar as possible with current customers' pain points.
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So I led a cross-functional research initiative which the goal was to: Learn from our main enterprise customer called RedGold, in order to understand their needs so we find opportunities to expand ShiperGuide to support other similar enterprise customers.
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My research process

Gathering internal knowledge

I talked to cross-funcional areas that worked with enterprise customers to understand wins and gaps related to RedGold.

Running user interviews

I turned first assumptions into questions for interviewing RedGold customer.

Turning findings into insights

I analyzed and organized raw data for stakeholder benefit.

Presenting the research report

I structured the report by grouping insights into clear categories (Quotes, Bids, Tendering, Booking, and Management) to simplify stakeholder understanding.

I presented the research report to Leadership. What I shared got their attention and served as user evidence to contribute to the squads' roadmap for the RedGold customer.
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Screenshot from Report I presented to the leadership.

The main finding

Through research, I uncovered that the RedGold was struggling to manage operations across multiple locations:

Supervisors lacked the ability to add/remove users per location.

Roles and permissions were inflexible, forcing Supervisors to do all management.

These issues were creating operational bottlenecks and forced reliance on our Support team for basic configuration changes.

While this finding proved to be highly valuable in RedGold's case, it also raised a critical question to me:

If we solve this for one customer, can we design it in a way that works for all enterprise customers?

Scaling the finding

Rather than treat this as a one-off fix, I wanted to validated the pain point with other enterprise customers by:

Interviews with other 07 enterprise customers.

Review of Sales and Support tickets.

Potential profitability analysis of current customers for Freight Under Platform (company's main KPI) at risk without addressing the issue.

• Stele - Over 40 branches (US$ 2.5M).
• General Insulation - Over 35 branches (US$ 9M).
• ...

Key findings from the 07 enterprise customers:

Supervisors need full access across locations, but other personas (e.g., Finance, Shipment Planner, Suppliers) only need contextual, limited access.

Access needed to be role-based + location-based.

Strong demand for analytics segmentation (company-wide vs location-level).

The result was clear:

This was not just a UX issue. But rather it was a competitive and revenue opportunity for ShipperGuide.

The Problem Statement

To clearly frame the challenge, I synthesized the research and business context into three critical dimensions that shaped the problem space:

User level

Different personas required tailored access based on organizational hierarchy.

Technology level

Engineering architecture wasn’t built for role-based access or location hierarchies.

Competitor level

Market leaders already offered robust role/location access, leaving ShipperGuide behind.

The Design Process

While engineering rebuilt backend architecture, I drove continuous design work:

Workshops for concepts reviews and design critiques:

Aligned squads, Product, Sales, and Engineering.

Design System

Leveraged Loadsmart’s design system to accelerate iteration in Figma.

I led cross-team workshops to align and build the solution • I also created a solution exploration space in Figma

Testing Solutions

To ensure we had the optimal solution addressing users' pain points, I created prototypes to conduct moderated remote usability sessions (60 mins), and validate the following user flows:

New user creation

Location switching

Viewing sections in read-only mode

Role-based access scenarios

Designs of different solutions tested.
(Global location switch • Contextual location switch • Settings-based location switch)

Usability Testing Insights

Positive feedback:

Global Location Switch was highly valued; also discovered secondary use cases (e.g., contextual location switching for non-supervisors).

Clean and intuitive design compared to competitor TMS tools.

Strong appreciation for delete/edit capabilities, role permissions, and simplified location switching.

Challenges:

Some users struggled to understand role-based permissions.

Iterations were needed to clarify who can do what at a glance.

Usability Testing Report documentation.

The prioritization and design roadmap

Given the complexity of the whole solution, I drove phased design delivery alignment.

Phase 01 - Supervisor persona:

Full access, global location switch, and user management

Phase 02 - Standard persona:

Read-only and contextual role access

Revamp of specific ShipperGuide sections

Phased delivery overview.

Proposed solution

To ensure the solution would scale effectively and address both user and business needs, I defined a set of guiding principles that anchored every design decision throughout the project:

Efficiency

Simplify user and location management workflows.

Integration

Provide unified access solutions across personas and use cases.

Data-oriented

Provide unified access solutions across personas and use cases.

Global Switch component scalability through all ShipperGuide sections.

I designed the user management experience to cover different access needs.

The settings-based location management experience.

Outcomes and impact

Shared enterprise customers pain point

Discovery confirmed that user access and location management challenges were not unique to RedGold but common across multiple strategic customers, validating the need for a scalable solution.

New revenue opportunities

The solution opened paths for Sales to position ShipperGuide as enterprise-ready, unlocking conversations with customers who required advanced access control to scale adoption.

Closing competitive gaps

By addressing a feature gap that competitors had already solved, the project strengthened ShipperGuide’s ability to win and retain profitable enterprise accounts.

Positive early adoption

With phased rollout underway, customers responded positively to the new features, especially the global location switch and improved role clarity, reinforcing the solution’s value.

Switch location experience metrics - April, 2024.

Learnings

Driving user-centric design in a sales-driven org requires persistence, but user evidence is powerful.

Enterprise workflow design must be broken into milestones, or stakeholders push for “all at once.”

Collaboration with Sales unlocked validation and prioritization opportunities.

Shippers’ workflows are more complex than expected; personas often wear multiple hats, which shaped the flexibility of the solution.

This project was a turning point in shaping ShipperGuide into an enterprise-ready TMS.

My role spanned research, design, facilitation, and stakeholder alignment, ensuring both user and business needs were addressed.

By connecting insights to business impact, I influenced roadmap priorities and established a scalable foundation for future enterprise expansion.

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A scalable User Access and Location Management experience for ShipperGuide - an optimized shipping operations software platform for shippers.

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