Overview

Ford Pro Telematics is the intelligence layer powering commercial fleet operations—from vehicle health and efficiency to diagnostics, driver behavior, and route optimization. Fleet managers were struggling with fragmented tools, inconsistent workflows, and a high cognitive load when navigating large volumes of vehicle and driver data.

As Design Manager, I led the end-to-end experience strategy and cross-functional alignment across UX, Product, and Engineering to simplify the telematics workflow, and deliver an intuitive platform that gives fleet managers control, clarity, and confidence in their daily operations.

The Challenge

Fleet managers—ranging from small business owners to national logistics leaders—needed clearer, faster ways to answer mission-critical questions:

• Are my vehicles healthy and available today?

• Which drivers need attention?

• What requires action right now?

• What’s costing us the most time or money?

The existing telematics interface suffered from:

• Disconnected workflows across health, diagnostics, location, and driver behavior

• Overwhelming data tables with no hierarchy or prioritization

• Alerts and insights buried across pages

• A lack of mobile-friendly patterns for field technicians

• Long onboarding curves for new fleet managers

We needed to transform the platform into a unified, insight-led system that could scale with Ford’s growing commercial ecosystem.

My Role

As Design Manager, I:

• Set the UX vision and experience strategy across Telematics, Connected Vehicle, and Fleet workflows

• Directed 40+ designers, 10 front end deelopers and researchers through concepting, prototyping, and delivery across multiple releases

• Aligned Product and Engineering around a unified roadmap and design system standards

• Established design rituals (weekly critiques, design reviews, cross-functional workshops)

• Coached designers on interaction design, systems thinking, and storytelling

• Championed a data-driven, user-centered design approach, partnering closely with research and analytics

Research & Insights

We conducted field research with fleets across:

• Utilities (repair & service trucks)

• Construction (mixed-vehicle fleets)

• Government (city maintenance, police service fleets)

• Last-mile delivery

Key insights:

1. Fleet managers were drowning in data, not insight.

They needed prioritization—not endless diagnostic tables.

2. Daily workflows were fragmented across tools.

Vehicle status, driver behavior, maintenance planning, and routing didn’t talk to each other.

3. Mobile was essential but underserved.

Field managers needed quick, actionable views—not full desktop interfaces.

4. Decisions required context, not just alerts.

An alert without severity, cost impact, or recommended action was ignored.

5. Fleet teams operated with “mental checklists.”

We needed to embed these mental models into the product interface.

These insights shaped our design principles.

Design Principles We Defined

1. Insight → Action
   Lead with the “why” and “what to do next.”

2. Clarity at Scale
   Organize high-density data through hierarchy, grouping, and progressive disclosure.

3. Mobile First for Field Operations
   Prioritize brevity, touch patterns, and contextual entry points.

4. System Thinking
   Ensure consistency across Ford Pro apps through shared components and patterns.

5. Adapt to Fleet Complexity
   From 5 vehicles to 5,000 vehicles—same clarity, different scale.

Track your fleet on live map

Solution

We delivered a unified, insight-led telematics platform centered around three core modules:

A. Vehicle Health Hub

A consolidated view of:

• Issues by severity (Critical, Major, Minor)

• Vehicle availability

• Maintenance forecasting

• Diagnostic trouble codes with plain-language descriptions

Impact: Managers immediately knew which vehicles could operate today—and which couldn’t.

B. Driver Behavior & Safety Dashboard

Surface-level patterns highlighting:

• Harsh braking

• Idling patterns

• GPS-based route events

• Speeding risk zones

Design decision: Pair quantitative data with contextual explanations to help managers coach drivers—not punish them.

C. Live Map + Operational Layer

Map-based command center with:

• Live vehicle locations

• Filters by assignment, status, or vehicle type

• Alerts layered onto the map (breakdowns, diagnostics, late routes)

• One-tap access to driver or vehicle profiles

Mobile-first enhancements: Quick actions (Call driver, Navigate, Assign task)

D. Unified Alerts Experience

Built a cross-platform alerting framework:

• Normalized severity levels

• Clear recommended actions

• Support for mobile push + in-platform notifications

• Transparent rules for when alerts trigger

Results & Outcomes

Within the first release cycle:

Reduction in time to diagnose vehicle issues

Managers could identify problems in seconds rather than minutes.

Increase in alert acknowledgment

Improved clarity and actionability drove engagement.

Higher adoption of mobile workflows

Field managers now used mobile first for daily operations.

Stronger cross-product consistency

Shared patterns accelerated design and development velocity.

Clearer business impact

Fleet downtime reduced, operational clarity improved, and teams were more proactive vs. reactive.

Reflection

This project reinforced the importance of designing for clarity, confidence, and connection between people and their tools—especially in operational environments where downtime has real-world consequences.

As Design Manager, my biggest contribution wasn’t just the final UI.
It was:

• Setting a clear UX strategy

• Aligning cross-functional teams

• Building a strong operational cadence

• Championing customer empathy

• Elevating the team’s craft and confidence

The result was a telematics platform that feels not just functional—but empowering.