TSS 2.0

The TSS 2.0 aka Transportation Services 2.0 Modernization is to transition existing users from a TSS1.0 - MF/Xpress (command-driven) legacy applications that touch across departments and teams, to a TSS 2.0 - Web Applications (functionality driven) culture.

Client

BNSF

Year

2018- 2021

Role

Lead UX Designer

Industry

Railroad

My Role

I was an XD (experience design) team member at BNSF and was fortunate to have met the best of creative minds in my time at the company.

I wore multiple hats in the TSS 2.0 project; I was the Lead Designer for the TSS 2.0 UICOP team, which designed & developed the reusable components to create a Design system and component library for then TSS modernization program from scratch.

I was also the UX designer for three TSS 2.0 application teams - Train Schedule, Blocking, and Train Tracker. In my UICOP role I and worked with UI Architects, fellow XD designers to support dev teams across the TSS domain right from requirement gathering, user research to high-fidelity prototypes and style guides for the design system and reusable library.

As part of the TSS 2.0 application teams, I was involved in design thinking workshops where I facilitated the journey mapping sessions and rapid prototyping sessions with stakeholders, SMEs, and core user groups.

I partnered with my Product Owners and Business Stakeholders to define business scope for the program and individual applications along with the engineering team. 

Top Highlights

  • TSS UI Vision

    In order to tackle the transition from legacy applications into a modernized world, I lead the concept of creating domain-specific UI CoP which will monitor consistency, brand language, themes, and User experience, and create unified components for the same.

  • Connecting the Company's design system

    To do that we needed to be in sync with the company’s brand language, standards, and guidelines.

  • TSS 2.0 Look Book

    In order for Engineering and development teams to understand and follow the design language without confusion, the Look Book was created.

  • Style Guide

    I included the style guides for color themes, language, text style, and navigating controls needed to build a suite of applications.

  • Design Examples

    Once we finalized the designs we needed to include them in the lookbook for references for engineering & development teams.

The Challenge & Research Phase

During the initial research phase, we chose to focus on one of the departments that will be transitioning through modernization efforts and we conducted field observations of Trainmasters at different locations to gain an understanding of what systems they are using, whom they are interacting with, and why they are doing these activities. However, through stakeholder interviews we were focussed to extract a more holistic view of other departments and the applications they use and will be using through modernization effort.

After collecting the recordings from the user interviews and synthesizing the field observation data, we created personas for train master, car load operator, supervisor, etc. We then drafted a journey map on how these personas interact with each other and which tools, and devices they use for communication throughout their day. 

Personas & Current State Journey Mapping

Design Thinking Workshops

I led a design thinking workshop after user research with our core team and conducted affinity mapping with my teammate to synthesize the pain points identified. We grouped these problems under common themes and features in the platform.

  • Defining goal

  • Dot Voting

  • Story Board

  • Workshop

  • Feedback

Legacy to Modern Design Transformation


Based on the above problems identified, I worked towards addressing these pains by coming up with potential solutions:

  • Reducing the number of steps to minimize time to completion

  • Having a seamless in and out of multiple applications in the tool suite by creating a reusable framework for all applications.

  • Establishing a clearer visual form hierarchy by grouping related fields

  • The lack of formal themes and layout, branding, and color palettes for the component also meant that I had to come up with a standardized styling and UI pattern for these UI components with my team.

​Here is a snippet of the outcome of a few applications within the TSS 2.0 Suite namely - Train Schedule App, Train Tracker App, Blocking & Routing App, and many more that were modernized from legacy systems applications.

  • Legacy Train Tracker

  • Legacy Train Schedule

  • Legacy Routing

  • Legacy Blocking

  • Train Tracker 2.0

  • Train Schedule 2.0

  • Blocking 2.0

  • Routing 2.0