design case study
Designing a Real-Time, Intelligent Dispatch Experience
ROLE
Sr. Product Designer
responsibility
Design research, UX & UI, testing
PROJECT TYPE
UX & UI Designer
ownership
zinier.com
more info
About Zinier
Zinier is non-code customizable field service management platform to schedule and manage workforce and assets.
Introduction
In fast-paced field service operations, dispatchers often face high pressure to assign the right technician quickly. Choosing the wrong technician can lead to operational failures, from missed appointments to costly operational cost such as second visits.
Project Background
The initial version of schedule and dispatch console was designed with legacy technology that come along with some technical constraint. The product team was aware of the necessity to update the design of Zinier's schedule and dispatch system.
However, as Zinier acquired more clients, now it's perfect time for product team to revisit and enhance these features from user experience and technology.
Target Users
Dispatcher
🧨 Problems Identification
Based on internal feedback and firsthand experience, we identified several key problems that emerged.
😵💫 High Cognitive Load
The dense calendar view forced dispatchers to visually scan rows and time blocks with minimal contextual cues.
❌ No Real-Time Awareness
Crucial data like technician traffic or weather impact was missing. Dispatchers lacked visibility into which technician could realistically reach the job fastest or safely.
💥 Disjointed Workflow
Open tasks, recommendations, and schedules lived in separate UI components. There was no intuitive way to link a task to the best match technician without switching context or performing manual matching.
👻 Missing Technician Context
Key decision factors like location and schedule where not show. This forced dispatchers to rely on memory or switch to other page to find the information. Slowing response time
Design Goal
Designing a dispatcher console where dispatchers can assign the right technician faster and more accurately.
🔍 Research & Discovery
To fully understand the dispatchers’ pain points, workflows, and confirming our assumption, we took a research and discovery activity:
✏️ What We Did:
- Shadowed dispatchers during live shifts.
- Conducted interviews with zinier customer support to gain insight from customer feedback.
- Mapped out dispatcher decision-making process.
- Interviews with dispatcher to understand job durations and their day to day activity.
💡 What We Learned:
- Dispatchers relied heavily on intuition and memory.
- Most decision time was spent contacting technician in the field, checking inventory, and make calculation proximity.
- Missed assignments often came down to lack of visibility or overlooked constraints in the field.
- The current console is not able to support when there is a lot request, and need for quick respond.
Image on the right: Dispather life cycle
🧩 Design Opportunities
Need: Dispatchers need to quickly assess technician schedule and avoid overlaps.
Opportunity: Design a structured or time grid that clearly visualizes assigned tasks by technician and their timeline.
Problem: Dispatcher have zero visibility of constraint that happen in the field.
Opportunity: Show technician status, alert, field conditions such as weather and location proximity to give better information for dispatcher.
Need: Dispatcher are welcome for solutions to simplify decision-making
Opportunity: Introduce an “Auto Schedule” button that suggests optimal task placements based on time, shift, and task type.
✅ Key Design Solutions
01. Timeline-Based Console
- The task list and calendar are unified in a single view, allowing users to assign tasks directly from the timeline.
- Color-coded blocks represent different task types, while clear visual cues highlight overlaps, shift hours, and technician unavailability.
02. Drag and Drop Task Assignment
- Real-time validation highlights conflicts or unavailable slots. This instant visual feedback makes the interaction feel natural and efficient.
03. Status, location, and other visual ques
- Technician information is enhanced with status icons that indicate online/offline presence, current shift, and transit status.
- Task cells feature weather indicators to flag potential impact on outdoor jobs, along with clear visual cues for task progress.
- An integrated map view displays exact task locations, eliminating the need to open a separate window or manually enter addresses.
✨ Before After
Impact
Dispatch console was designed and build in 3 months and quickly become the main features from Zinier platform.
The console significantly enhances dispatcher efficiency and speed. Its new design is not only user-friendly but also come with minimal learning curve, thanks to the simple functionality making it easy to understand and use for existing or new user.
Read more about this in Zinier website
Zinier website 2025
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