A team of 13 SCAD students worked with GE Transportation to research and develop concepts for the visualization locomotive data. I was able to use primary and secondary research methods to know the context of how data is currently used in GE Transportation and design for creating valuable insight for users through visualized historical data and customized user flow.
GE Transportation conducted a workshop with their employees prior to our project kick-off in order to provide us with insights into their employees values, behaviors, and needs as our core users. They developed personas with storyboards for us to work with, categorized into four GE Transportation departments.
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Secondary Research is how a designer informs their understanding of a problem before attempting to tackle it. The process involves a survey approach to user case studies, stakeholders, current trends, analogous project models, and more. Primary research is conducted by the design team themselves in order to get more specific information about their subject.
This methodology allows designers to identify core users, supporting players, and the ecosystem that may also interact with the final design outcome.
By assessing GE on its former, current, and emerging trends, our team was able to identify the trajectory and canonical focus of GE Transportation in the past, moving into the future. Our trends matrix presents a high-level summary of how trends and forces of change affect people, culture, business, market, and technology in the transportation industry.
The result of data mashup helps to find connections between different types of data and build a more complete story. Having location information of the LoT device helps users better understand what is happening, where it is happening, and predict what will happen and predict what will happen in a specific location. The future of data visualization, as seen through the GET lens, can utilize data mashup to integrate locomotive related data from different sources to help an automation command center do better predictive analytics.
Storytelling provides a way to bring users qualitative insight through quantitative data. Stories made with data give details and context to the data visualization, creating a more enjoyable experience for the users.
A means of understanding internal strengths and weaknesses, alongside external opportunities and threats, through strategic analysis. Taking it further, researchers can find correlations between these sectors, and discover relative competition and advantageous project planning strategies.
All members of our group, regardless of their design backgrounds, out their best efforts into the initial visualization sketches. With enough ideas to cover three walls of our workroom, we were able to cluster and relate our diverse concepts to one another and illuminate which ideas were recurring and relatable to our user base.
Based on the feedback we got from testing in Erie, we did the final round design and presented 9 final prototypes to our clients. Within the 9 prototypes, I mainly participated in designing 2 of them which is the 3D Cycling and Loco Usage.
3D Cycling is optimized for the product market fit team, which allows users to compare train functions such as motoring and braking in context with location and environmental factors.
What if users could determine the peaks and valleys for a locomotive’s power and/or brake to understand the causes for a locomotive’s inefficiencies?
What if users could visualize the locomotive’s performance based on its trips on a single route while also going back into the history of the locomotive?
What if users could derive insights from understanding a locomotive’s utilization rate while comparing the percentage change of motoring and idle time?
What if users could analyze utilization data and compare different customers or locomotives in order to identify gaps and provide solutions for better usage?
What if users could get a deeper understanding about a locomotive’s usage information on a map to better understand the location and reasons for the idle time spent.
We began this journey together as a room full of strangers and loose acquaintances. We came from different design backgrounds, different academic programs, different corners of the world, and had very different ideas of how to visualize the data we received from GE. Our task felt daunting, and our communication skills would be put to the test as we worked with diverse skill sets and degrees of experience. With strong leadership and pure determination, we were able to motor through obstacles that came up along the way, and ended with seven design solutions we all feel confident in and proud of.
We met GE employees with invaluable knowledge that served as true north for the trajectory of our ideations. We shared design methods, learned data processes, and became a stronger team daily. None of this would have been possible without our partners at GE Transportation, the wonderful professionals we met in Erie, support from SCADPro, and guidance from our Creative Directors Joe DiGioia and Josephine Leong. Our deepest thanks to all stakeholders involved. We grew ideas and we grew as designers: It is our hope that the lessons and solutions born from this project live on and grow too.
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