About VoltSafe
The specific product that I worked on, VoltSafe Marine, is an all-in-one solution that pairs a smart, marine-grade power pedestal (post with outlets to supply electricity) with a marina management software. It gives marina managers a single platform to manage power usage, reservations, and customer billing.
Here's how VoltSafe Marine works: our specially designed smart power pedestals—grey ones in the photo—will replace traditional ones (imagine a large outdoor version of your home power outlet), and offer smart features and safety measures.
They connect directly to our marina management software, giving marina managers an enhanced ability to manage power and streamline reservations and billing.
Overview
This case study walks through how I led the product design efforts to evolve our app from a Beta into a customer-ready release over 10 months.
⚠️ Note: Due to NDA, I cannot share the full design. I've highlighted key processes and rationale, and can show more design details over a call.
Beta
Launch
Team
1 Lead Product Designer (me)
2 Full-stack Developers
4 Hardware Engineers
CTO
Timeline
10 months
My Role
Product Strategy
User Research
Competitor Analysis
Design System
UI/UX Design
Usability Testing
The Challenge
When I joined in June 2024, the goal was clear: get the software ready for launch by summer 2025.
Breaking Down Our Goals, Metrics & Plan
I started by further defining our problem, goals, and plan with the team.
The team aimed for a launch-ready product that was:
Competitive
Easy to learn for new users
However, they didn't have clearly defined problems (what areas to fix and why) or roadmap. They had rough ideas of features they wanted to improve, and planned to simply iterate on them until the release date.
De-risking & Creating An Intentional Plan
Once I learned their plan, I explained the risks and missed opportunities that I saw:
Overlook important features
Carry out redundant work
Less coherent design
Less strategic input
I suggested taking a deep dive into our users, product, and market once again, so we could better identify our shortcomings and gain a clear idea of what our launch-ready product should look like. They agreed with me, and allowed me to take the lead on this effort!
Taking A Deep Dive Into Our Product
I utilized the following methods to examine our users, product, and market.
User research
Customer journey mapping
UX audit
Competitive analysis
User Research
I spoke with a few marina managers, boat owners, and my co-workers who had interacted directly with them. We had a primary and secondary user group.
Primary: Marina owners & managers
30-40+ years old (managers are typically younger than owners)
Owners are responsible for purchasing our product
Managers run the marinas. Their key tasks are helping boaters come in/out, making reservations, and billing boaters.
Secondary: Boaters
50+ years old
Own small boats and yachts (personal)
Mainly use or live on their boats during nice seasons
Often DIYers who install and modify equipment/appliances
Use the pedestals to power their boats when parked
They share some important traits:
Not tech-savvy
Resistent to change
Customer Journey
Building on what I learned from user research, I mapped out the customer journey to better understand their workflows and key touch points with our product.
The flowchart maps out the marina manager journey (blue) and boater journey (green). It also highlights key touch points with our products, and how their experiences connect.
UX Audit
I then assessed our Beta app using UX principles, heuristics, and user workflows. The audit surfaced several key issues:
Weak IA & content organization
Underdeveloped features or missing use cases
Poor interaction/flow in key features
Weak visual inconsistency & design system
Cluttered screens & weak visual hierarchy
Lack of design-to-dev process (no feature requirements, design documentation, or handoff guidelines)
Some examples of UX issues I found with the Beta.
Competitive Analysis
Then, to gauge where we stood in the market, I compared our Beta to leading marina managements softwares in the market:
Our feature set was strong (booking, billing, power control)
Our design was weak. We had outdated visuals and clunky, overly complex interactions.
There was still a lot of market share. Very small percentage of marinas used a management software.
Product Assessment & Strategy
Based on everything I'd learned, I identified the areas we must improve on to have a launch-ready product.
Improve IA & Navigation
Improve visual touch and consistency
Simplify layout & interaction
Smooth out task flows & edge cases of key features (reservations, payments, power control)
I also used Dockwa, one of the leading competitors, as our general bar. Our launch-ready product must be at least as good as theirs.
My team agreed with my assessment and strategy, and agreed to follow the direction.
Product Roadmap
Using the strategy as the foundation, I devised a roadmap to get us there.
Create wireframes of product with improved IA, navigation, and layout
This was important for us to get a feel of how our final product would work, and keep us organized while we re-organize the content.
Adopt a design system
This helped us improve visual & interaction consistency, and increase design and development speed.
Tackle one feature per sprint
We tackled one feature per sprint using the wireframes as a rough guideline. We improved usability and implemented the new design system.
Focus on navigation and task completion time
We tested each newly designed feature against the Beta for navigation (how long it takes to find an item) and task completion time. These metrics were most appropriate and feasible for our product launch.
Results & Impact
We launched successfully in time for our first purchase order from Wigwam Marina! Not only that, we truly believed we released a product that was competitive in features, usability, and visuals.
On top of designing the launch product, I also reshaped how design functioned in the company:
Adopted and developed a new design system that will increase consistency and speed of design and development for future projects.
Developed a closer and more efficient collaboration with other teams, especially developers.
Elevated design's role from execution-focused to one that actively contributes to product strategy.
Key Learnings
Product discovery is critical even under time pressure
Because I took the time to understand the users, market, and internal processes, it gave us a clearer direction, priorities, and ultimately better results in a more timely manner.
Design process doesn’t have to be heavy to be effective
Every team and company is different. I was able to find a light-weight process for us that balanced speed and quality. It all comes down to understanding your teams and company needs.