A research-led redesign of a B2B handover system for corrugated-board factories. In usability testing the redesigned flow cut task time and error rates against the existing module.
[Your finding: where handover knowledge lived and what got lost between shifts.]
Led user research on site, mapped the real handover, redesigned the flow around what changed since the last shift, prototyped it in Figma and ran usability tests with operators.
Faster handover tasks and fewer errors in usability testing. Methods and results presented to OpenPack; design decisions defended to non-design stakeholders.
A corrugator runs around the clock. Every eight hours a new crew takes over machines that are mid-run, with quality issues, temporary fixes and half-finished orders that only the outgoing crew knows about.
OpenPack, Klingele's software unit, asked TH Ingolstadt to look at their existing handover module: it existed, but operators didn't use it. My job was to find out why, and to design something they would.
Three decisions, each with the evidence behind it
Finding: [your finding, e.g. what happened to the free-text report in interviews]. Decision: replace the report form with a structured change log per machine, prefilled from machine data, so the operator only confirms or corrects.
Finding: handover happens standing at the machine, often with gloves on. Decision: larger touch targets, high-contrast status colours that also differ in lightness, and a one-screen summary readable from arm's length.
Finding: [your finding about shift leads versus operators]. Decision: split the product by role. Operators get the handover; leads get an analytics view built with consumer-level clarity on complex data.
Structured usability tests against the existing module
Task completion, time on task and error count measured against the existing module. Sessions recorded, think-aloud coded in MAXQDA. Findings from the first round were fixed before the next iteration.
Bring the non-design stakeholders in earlier. Defending decisions at the end took energy that a shared research readout at the start would have saved.
Keep observing before interviewing. What people told us about handover and what they did on the floor were different, and the design came from the second.