Opportunity
Variant, a venture-backed subsidiary of US Xpress, was tasked with building a mobile-first platform to transform the driver experience. The app needed to integrate Variant’s route optimizer with driver input — balancing efficiency, compliance, and driver preferences. Beyond improving day-to-day routing, the app also needed to scale driver onboarding, reduce churn, and set the foundation for future programs like the “Ambassador” initiative.
Key Problems
Scalability
Onboarding new drivers was slow, equipment-heavy, and manual. A mobile-first process would enable faster, virtual onboarding at scale.
Driver Frustration
Drivers lacked input into their routes, fueling dissatisfaction and low retention.
Routing Gaps
The optimizer overlooked driver-specific needs like hometime requests, rest stops, and personal preferences.
Future Expansion
The app had to serve as the foundation for upcoming fleet growth and incentive programs.
Design Approach
Coming into this project there were no documents, insights, or formally written requirements; I was essentially starting from scratch working with stakeholders and drivers to understand business needs, expected outcomes, and driver workflows.
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Journey Mapping: Conducted “ridealongs” with drivers and shadowed Operations Specialists to document workflows, pain points, and real-world conditions.
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Opportunity Mapping: Analyzed Freshdesk tickets and mapped driver pain points to business goals in Freight Acquisition and Operations.
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Competitive Audits: Studied adjacent models (rideshare, delivery, navigation apps) to identify patterns that could translate to trucking use cases.
Example of one of many swim-lane diagrams created to help understand broader context of acquiring freight and assigning loads to drivers. This also shows the intersection of the many systems and sources at play.
I followed typical iterative design methods, creating lower fidelity iterations to test in moderated and unmoderated settings, while also developing realistic chunks of work that could feed an agile development team and allow us to delvier value incrementally.​​
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Prototyping & Testing: Deployed Figma prototypes directly to drivers’ devices for remote usability sessions; iterated on workflows to balance operational efficiency with driver control.
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Execution Leadership: Managed developer design handoff, spec reviews, and code reviews, ensuring usability was embedded into the mobile build.
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Advocacy & Opportunity Creation: Actively identified new UX-driven opportunities (like app-based onboarding and integration points for future programs) and influenced product strategy by showing how design choices could reduce churn, increase adoption, and support revenue growth.
Some static screens of the Roger App, on the right is a screenshot from when I was testing Pendo onboarding guides.
Challenges
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Limited Driver Access: Testing required creative scheduling around drivers’ regulated hours. Solved by cross-referencing Hometime data to recruit testers and partnering with Acquisition teams to run focused group sessions.
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Infrastructure & Data Translation: Freight system data was often too technical or incomplete for drivers; workflows had to simplify and contextualize operations jargon without losing accuracy.
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Routing Integrations: Off-the-shelf mapping APIs (e.g., Google Maps) weren’t optimized for trucking. Designed workarounds for driver-specific needs like truck parking, freight security, and reliable rest stops.
Impact
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Rapid Adoption: Roger MVP deployed to all active drivers within 1 week of beta launch.
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Improved Driver Satisfaction: Achieved 86%+ satisfaction rating in driver surveys versus legacy systems.
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Business and Revenue Growth: App-supported Ambassador Program expanded fleet by ~200 drivers in year one, contributing +$3.4M in incremental revenue.
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Foundation for Scale: Established the platform for future driver engagement initiatives, the Ambassador program was created and integrated into the follow-on Roger 2.0 version of the app.
This project reinforced the value of combining ethnographic research with operational data to design for complex, real-world workflows. By grounding the app in driver needs and operational constraints, we created not only a usable product, but a scalable platform that aligned directly with business growth.