ST ENGINEERING
About
Project Completion - Feb 2022
Under the guidance of ST Engineering - GeoInsights
My Role
User Research
Visual Design
Feature Enhancement
Results
Developed a cohesive visual design system to ensure consistency across the platform.
Proposed innovative features to enhance user experiences.
Created a vision and design concept tailored for a maritime platform.
Maritime Platform Dashboard
This was an individual month-long project for ST Engineering GeoInsights during my internship. GeoInsights offers analytics, information products and value-added services based on satellite imagery to address the growing global demand for timely insights.
Background Of Maritime
GeoEarth - Maritime is a platform designed to allow customers to identify suspicious activities by utilising satellite data analytics.
This platform then helps to automatically create an AOI analytics report, allowing customers to detect a variety of activities happening in the water bodies.
A screenshot of what the dashboard looked like originally.
Identifying The Key Problems
A key issue with the platform was its approach to providing extensive data to customers without processing or refining it. The lack of curation and filtering gave the impression that the platform offered minimal value-added services.
01. Overloaded & Unnecessary Data
02. Analytical Report
The presentation of the analytical database made it difficult for users to easily interpret and absorb the information. While providing analytical data is one of the platform's key features, this approach risks backfiring if users struggle to understand the data and are unable to draw conclusions about the vessel's level of suspicion.
03. Ambiguous Target Audience
Who is the platform designed for? “Everyone.” At the early stages of the project, the services and target audience were vague and overly generic.
As a result, the platform attempted to display all potentially "useful" information, leading to an overwhelming experience. However, maritime tracking serves diverse purposes for different users, making it crucial to tailor data analytics to meet the specific needs of distinct target audiences.
Design Goals
How might we re-design the Maritime Platform, to allow an easier flow of information displayed to the specific users?
01 Short Term Design Goal
Given that this was a live platform with short deadlines, efforts were focused on continuously improving the user and visual design.
The designs in these sections were quick yet effective solutions, optimized to enhance the platform within a constrained timeline.
New Features & Components.
01
Rating System
The rating system provides customers with a concise summary of the information presented to them.
By designing a clear and efficient way to display data, and evaluating information filtering techniques, we can implement a scoring system in the database that assigns point values to each classification.
02
Curated Summary Statistic
Creating a summary statistic feature for the homepage will give users an instant overview of live data.
By implementing a scoring system for suspicious vessels, we can generate a list that highlights suspicious activity in water bodies, allowing for immediate attention and increased efficiency.
03
Search Bar With
Auto-complete Search
By implementing an autocomplete search, we enable easy reference and efficient navigation when looking for a specific vessel.
04
Database That Highlights Suspicious Activites of The Vessel
By implementing logic and filtering techniques in the database backend, we can identify and highlight suspicious vessel activities.
This allows users to concentrate on relevant, curated information, with clear explanations for each highlight being crucial for effective assessment.
THE Outcome
An Efficient & Cohesive Database Journey For Customers
By redesigning the platform, we streamlined information delivery, improving visitor engagement and response rates.
The implementation of an AI-driven rating system addressed the issue of overwhelming data, providing customers with an instant overview of the profitability of selected areas.
Additionally, enhancing the design language and style created a more cohesive and consistent visual experience, reinforcing the product's identity and improving brand recognition.
02 Long Term Design Goal
While some design ideas were easier to implement, others took longer to conceptualize due to the extensive backend research and development required by software engineers.
*This is an Artist Impression
Visualising The Potential of Maritime Platform
This is a visionary design concept for a maritime platform that curates information based on specific activities commonly occurring in water bodies, such as illegal fishing, oil spills, piracy, and transshipment.
My Reflection
Working on this project individually was both challenging and rewarding. I learned so much from collaborating with developers, software engineers, and geospatial analysts.
The project involved a lot of reading and familiarising myself with unfamiliar terms and concepts, which was a steep learning curve. With the complexity and ambiguity involved, finding the right balance of data to display was tough. It took many discussions and iterations with the team to land on the best solution.
Despite the challenges, I truly enjoyed being exposed to web services in a niche industry, as it gave me valuable insights and broadened my perspective.