Client
Cargill
Year
2021 - 2024
My Role
Lead Product Designer
Alpha - Price Capture & My Price
Cargill's Ocean Transportation (OT) division is a leading global freight trader and charterer, managing a diverse fleet of over 600 vessels.
It provides maritime logistics solutions for both Cargill's internal needs and third-party customers, specialising in food, agriculture, financial risk management, and the transportation of dry bulk commodities across international waters.
The Problem
Cargill OT's freight pricing relied on inefficient spreadsheets, lacking historical context and market benchmarks.
The challenge was to develop an integrated digital solution that captures prices, provides comparative data, and streamlines workflows. This system needed to enable data-driven strategies in an opaque market while addressing maritime logistics complexities.
My Role
I developed the interconnected My Price (MP) and Physical Price Capture (PPC) interfaces. I designed intuitive experiences streamlining traders' workflows, ensuring PPC efficiently fed pricing data into MP for comprehensive freight analysis and customer quotations. My user-centered approach aligned the designs with both business objectives and user needs.
Observing Traders
Our team observed Geneva-based traders using Excel sheets and conducted collaborative workshops to understand their challenges.
This user-centric approach informed the development, producing, comparative data, and workflow streamlining. By involving traders throughout, we aimed to create a trusted solution tailored to their needs.
Ocean Transportation (OT)
In developing My Price, we tackled maritime voyage complexities, including ballast and laden journeys. The system factored in distances, transit times, port calls, and bunkering stops.
This approach created an accurate pricing tool that reflected maritime logistics intricacies, enabling reliable voyage cost estimation.
Three Amigos
I collaborated closely with BA, Product Owner, and Lead Developer in a "3 Amigos" format, ensuring alignment on UX and technical feasibility.
This process integrated business needs, technical capabilities, and user-centered design. Our effective remote workflow maintained productivity across different geographies.
Analysing the Voyage
Implementing an interactive Mapbox route map in the estimate, visually depicting voyages for quick data assimilation.
Traders could explore locations, gaining insights into prices, margins, and variables like draft limitations and piracy costs. Combining numerical data with geographical context, enhanced decision-making and profitability assessments.
Screen Flows
I created wireframe screen flows for the user journeys to map key interactions. These served as blueprints for app structure and functionality.
In line with Agile principles, wireframes were presented to the product team for rapid validation and iteration. This process refined UX, aligned stakeholders, identified issues early, and laid the groundwork for further design stages.
Patterns & Components
The project utilised the Alpha Design System's components and patterns, accelerating the design process.
Existing components were reused or adapted, with new ones created only when necessary. This approach maintained platform consistency while allowing for customisation.
Overcoming problems
The Price Capture system's fat finger validation feature tackled inaccurate inputs by flagging outliers for verification, with senior override capability.
This improved data reliability while balancing error prevention and market adaptability, reducing mistakes but allowing for valid exceptions.
Platform Solutions
I contributed to the design system using Zeroheight, improving team-wide understanding. Collaborating with developers via Storybook and Playroom for simultaneous design/development.
This approach enhanced peer review and quality assurance, creating a cohesive workflow, resulting in a robust, consistent UI.
Data-driven approach
DataDog monitored real-time user interactions, tracking feedback and usability issues. This created a continuous improvement loop, prioritising enhancements based on user behavior.
Outcome
The initiatives significantly improved PPC's financial processes, enhancing P&L calculation accuracy, inventory valuation, and cash book management. The UX/UI design optimised trader efficiency while maintaining data integrity.
Both projects enhanced interdepartmental alignment, data quality, and decision-making capabilities. The cloud-native solutions improved scalability and adaptability to meet evolving business needs.
