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Marlow
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Cargo UI

A design system for a freight platform used by dispatchers eight hours a day.

Client
Freightline
Role
Design systems lead
Year
2023
Team
2 designers, 4 engineers
Component sheet of buttons, status pills and a dense data table
Fig. 1Component sheet of buttons, status pills and a dense data table
  • 86

    Components with docs

  • 5

    Product teams on one system

  • −30%

    Time to ship a new screen

Timeline

1 year, start to launch

  1. Audit2 mo
  2. Tokens3 mo
  3. Components7 mo
  4. Migration6 mo

The problem

Five teams had built five tables. Dispatchers switching between screens had to relearn how to sort, filter and select a row.

Approach

We started with the table because it is where dispatchers live, then pulled buttons, pills and inputs out of it. Density is a setting, not a separate component.

Data table at compact and comfortable density
Fig. 2One table, two densities.
  1. Comfortable density for reading, with numbers right-aligned so they compare.
  2. Status is the only colored column, so the eye lands there first.
  3. Compact density for the dispatch floor: six loads fit where four did before.

Details

Status colors are paired with a shape, so a delayed load reads the same on a grayscale printout. Keyboard shortcuts are listed in every tooltip.

Status pills with color and shape
Fig. 3Status reads by shape as well as color.
  1. Every status has its own shape: dot, triangle, square, tick.
  2. Checked in grayscale. Each status still reads without its color.
“Dispatchers live in that table for eight hours. Ines made it faster with a keyboard than the old one was with a mouse, and it shows in every shift.”
Daan VisserVP Product, Freightline

Credits

Design systems
Ines Calder, Nora Haas
Engineering
Cargo platform team
Accessibility review
Sam Oduya

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