Case 3: Task management tool
At
Wash World
Year
2024
Status
Implementation ongoing
Tags
User-Centered Design, user shadowing, user journeys
Preamble
Wash World is a car wash company. A car wash is a complex machine requiring regular servicing. With over 200 locations across four markets, Wash World relies on multiple departments to minimize downtime and resolve errors efficiently.
The problem:
Employees from the Customer Service department use too many different software solutions
Supervisors in the Service department rely on obsolete tools to plan the schedules of technicians and cleaners
Technicians do incredible work but often leave locations without being aware of additional errors they could have fixed when they were there resulting in much wasted time in transit from location to location
The Goal:
Discover Customer Service wishes for a new software solution that lets them do their job more efficiently and ultimately create that software solution
Create a new role under the Service department that is responsible for maintaining staff schedules and design a system that lets them do that
Build a mobile first solution that lets technicians and cleaners see their daily schedules
Ensure that all new systems can work with each other
The Team:
1 designer (me)
1 FE developer and three part-time student FE interns
2 BE developers
The project owner
Responsibilities:
Gathering information from various employees from the involved departments to understand their user needs
Ideation with the project owner
Prepping user-journeys and flow diagrams
Creating wireframes
Developing prototypes in Figma
Getting feedback from various stakeholders
Making the final designs in Figma
In the end, Wash World had three new software solutions, which I will present to you here.
IT Operations sets up alerts for machine errors, which are displayed in Sitewatch, a tool I created (though not named by me). Customer Service then uses Sitewatch to generate ‘tasks’ for the Service department, which includes technicians, cleaners, and a dispatcher.
The dispatcher prioritizes tasks using Flight Control (another tool I built, but didn’t name), ensuring swift resolution. Technicians and cleaners access their assigned tasks through Worksheet, the third tool I developed.
All these tools are housed within the Wash World Administration Platform (WAP)—not to be confused with the Cardi B song, despite office jokes.
See the diagram below for an overview.
Sitewatch
Sitewatch displays alerts for all washing machines—but more accurately, it’s a sorted list of them. Each row is color-coded (red, yellow, blue, or white) based on status. A red row indicates a malfunction with no task yet created for Service, meaning they wouldn’t know to act. Tasks are generated directly from this page via an overlay (see image below).
To make Sitewatch truly useful for Customer Service, I first studied their daily tasks. They frequently handle customer calls about issues like stalled machines or malfunctioning gates. Their workflow required quickly locating the machine, checking CCTV, taking corrective action, and, if needed, creating a task for Service.
Previously, this process involved multiple apps, making it slow and cumbersome. I consolidated most of these operations into Sitewatch, with relevant links to external control panels (which we couldn’t access via API).
Flight Control
Once a task is created, the Service dispatcher assigns and prioritizes it—a role that didn’t exist before.
Flight Control is inspired by games like World of Warcraft, where maps guide players. After discussions with the new dispatcher, we integrated Google Maps to show real-time locations and schedules of cleaners and technicians. Sites with unassigned tasks appear in red or purple, signaling where action is needed.
Worksheet
Once a technician or cleaner’s day is planned, their tasks are listed here, updating to started, paused, or completed as they progress. When all tasks at a location are done, it turns green and is checked out—ideally, all locations are green by day’s end.
From this view, technicians can navigate via Google Maps, access task details without a page load, document work, and see other tasks at the location that they could do while they are there. A lot of logic determines task and location states, but I’ll skip the finer details here.
Conclusion
The Goal:
Discover Customer Service wishes for a new software solution that lets them do their job more efficiently and ultimately create that software solution
Create a new role under the Service department that is responsible for maintaining staff schedules and design a system that lets them do that
Build a mobile first solution that lets technicians and cleaners see their daily schedules
Ensure that all new systems can work with each other
The result:
Three new software solutions: Flight Control, Sitewatch, and Worksheet, were created. A new role for the company, the dispatcher, was also created.