Making an Uber Rideshare for Oceangoing Freight: Messenger App

Coloading is when a single container/small numbers of containers book an open spot on a freighter "going in that direction."
Challenge: The challenge was to make a seamless booking tool for USA-based shipping companies, with just in time info on ocean-going freighters who could carry their containers (and vice versa).
- Example: A Rotterdam-bound ocean going freighter in New York has a small number of open spots for shipping containers. But time is a factor - people have to jump on these open spots in a matter of hours to "ride share" on the freighter.
- The CoLoadX desktop booking tool was already helping move these owner-operators away from using fax machines (or worse, running paper forms to and from various offices).
- But now the customers were asking for a mobile tool, too.
Team: The co-founders both served as my link to the users to study, and helped me shape the final design.
Research: In my user studies and research, I found an aggregation and analysis of competitive rates is a vast area of need. The resulting messenger app can serve both as a booking tool and as a way to passive monitor those rates.
Customer Pain Points: Since many shipping companies are mom and pop type owner-operated companies, the booking tool needed to be available 24/7. It also needed to be easy to use, even at 3 AM on a Sunday night when English was not always their first language.
Showcase Feature: Chatbots are akin to the phone calls they were used to making to and from the booking agents, it was the form that worked best in later user studies.
Final Design: We used the desktop app to onboard the customer so the mobile experience was entirely "time on task" - which helped reduce friction in the shift from desktop to the mobile experience. The mobile experience became all about "time on task" - only five clicks to swiftly book (or accept a booking).
Sum up the results and learnings