MacLean Vehicle Monitoring System (VMS)
Mining operators and internal teams lacked real-time visibility into vehicle health during long underground shifts, relying on delayed and fragmented email-based updates
Role
Product Designer / UX Researcher
Timeline: 2022–Present
Platform:
Web (B2B, Enterprise, Safety-Critical)
Project Overview
The Vehicle Monitoring System (VMS) is a web-based platform designed to provide real-time and historical visibility into MacLean’s mining vehicles operating underground and above ground.
The product enables customers and internal teams to monitor vehicle health, faults, battery, and engine conditions during long underground shifts where vehicles are disconnected from external networks.
VMS replaced manual, email-based reporting with a centralized digital experience, improving safety visibility, operational efficiency, and customer support in a high-risk mining environment.
Problem & Context
Before VMS, customers depended on daily email reports from internal technicians to understand vehicle performance and issues. This process was slow, fragmented, and difficult to track over time.
For MacLean, this created operational overhead and posed a competitive risk, as key competitors were already offering digital monitoring solutions. In a safety-critical mining environment, delayed or missed information could lead to serious consequences.
Underground environments that MacLean equipments are made for.
My Role & Ownership
I was the sole Product / UX Designer responsible for the end-to-end design of the Vehicle Monitoring System.
I owned:
• Discovery and user research from scratch
• User interviews, surveys, and field observations with customers and internal teams
• Creation of personas, empathy maps, and experience maps
• Definition of user flows, information architecture, and interaction patterns
• Wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes, and production-ready design specifications
• Design system components, iconography, and visual assets aligned with company branding
• Planning and running usability testing sessions
• Iterating designs based on user feedback and technical constraints
• Close collaboration with product managers, engineers, technicians, and operators
Research & Discovery
Methods
• User interviews
• Surveys
• Task-based usability testing
• Observation
• Card sorting
Participants
30–40 users across customers, technicians, and internal teams.
Key Insights
Insight 1
What we learned
Operators lacked a centralized, reliable way to access detailed vehicle information, making it difficult to quickly understand vehicle status, history, and emerging issues.
Why it mattered
This fragmentation increased the risk of delayed issue resolution and inconsistent decision-making — a critical concern in a safety-sensitive mining environment.
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Insight 2
What we learned
Users lacked continuous visibility into vehicle status, except during physical inspections or scheduled updates.
Why it mattered
Limited visibility increased the risk of missed or delayed responses to vehicle faults, increasing safety and operational risk.
User Persona
As Is Map
From Insights to Design Focus
These insights informed the information architecture and interaction model, ensuring users could quickly access critical vehicle data without unnecessary cognitive load.
Initial Architecture, Colour Palette & Fonts
Design Decisions
Above is the example of the dashboards I designed for the portal. It consists of all the details that our stakeholders needed.
Design Decision: Centralized Vehicle Overview
• Insight
Users relied on fragmented communication to understand vehicle status.
• Decision
I designed a centralized dashboard that surfaces vehicle health, maintenance status, and fault alerts in one place.
• Why it mattered
This reduced reliance on email updates and allowed faster, safety-critical decision-making.
Initial Wireframes
Screenshots of Complete Prototype
Outcome & Reflection
Outcome
• Replaced manual reporting with a centralized monitoring tool
• Improved visibility into vehicle health for operators and customers
• Supported faster response in safety-critical situations
Reflection
This project taught me how to design within real operational constraints and reinforced the importance of clarity and reliability in safety-critical systems.