How a UI Redesign Boosted Efficiency for Unmanned Vehicle Monitoring

Project Background

Rapid growth of unmanned vehicle services has increased the variety and number of vehicles, raising maintenance, operation costs, and server load. The existing monitoring system suffers from poor user experience: the large‑screen style does not suit quick operations, key information is hard to find, and long interaction times cause fatigue.

Preliminary Analysis

Unmanned vehicles include delivery cars and sales cars. Delivery vehicles grew from 100 to 300 units; sales cars are a new line with about 10 units in trial. Users are technical support and operations staff who handle over 80 abnormal vehicles per day, working more than 8 hours online.

Key problems identified through interviews, self‑checks, user feedback, competitor analysis, and industry trends:

High daily volume of abnormal vehicles makes key information hard to locate.

Long task processing time leads to fatigue.

Current visual style is a bright, high‑saturation large‑screen design that users find glaring.

Occasional visits from government or other guests require a presentation‑friendly view.

Design Goals and Strategies

The redesign follows three principles: easy to understand, easy to find, easy to use. Two major strategies were defined: a brand upgrade that redefines visual style for both daily operation and visitor scenarios, and efficiency improvements through optimized layout, search, and visualized operations.

New Brand Upgrade

The previous large‑screen style could not meet daily operation needs and caused inconsistent visual experiences. A new brand direction was established based on immersive, efficient, and intelligent keywords. Visual upgrades focus on comfortable colors, standardized layout, consistent typography, intuitive icons, and emotional communication.

Color Mode

Two themes (dark and light) were tested; 93% of users preferred dark mode because it aligns with the previous version, reduces visual fragmentation on multi‑screen displays, and is easier on the eyes, especially on OLED screens. Dark mode also creates an immersive focus on content.

Color Selection

Blue was chosen as the primary hue, mirroring automotive dashboards and evoking calmness, technology, and intelligence. Background colors were harmonized for both dark and light modes to ensure good projection quality during guest visits.

Layout Standardization

Because operators use screens of varying sizes, a responsive layout was adopted. Vehicle cards adapt to screen size, allowing more information to be displayed on large screens while remaining usable on small ones.

Brand Reinforcement

The concept of “light” is integrated into icons and empty states using gradients and glow effects, with a hierarchy of light‑sensing icons, surface icons, and linear icons.

Efficient Service Experience

Based on the visual upgrade, information hierarchy was optimized to improve signal‑to‑noise ratio. Card information is reordered by priority (basic info → fault status & route → auxiliary info) and visualized with icons and color coding to speed up retrieval.

Roles were separated: technicians need quick search and list views; operators need map‑centric monitoring. Both list and map modes were added to match their workflows.

Layout was restructured to merge list and search areas, reduce modal dialogs, and use color cues for obstacles, cutting decision time.

Immersive “shake‑car” experience was enhanced by aligning video feeds with real‑world orientation, enlarging video areas, and adding 3D view assistance, reducing average handling time from 2 minutes to 1.6 minutes (20% improvement).

Additional visual cues for vehicle direction and speed were introduced, and mouse‑keyboard shortcuts were added to further boost efficiency.

Conclusion

The redesign demonstrates that continuous user‑centered iteration, data‑driven metrics (HEART model, JD Logistics experience model), and balanced brand‑technology aesthetics can significantly improve operational efficiency and user comfort. Future directions include multi‑sensory feedback (audio, haptic) and VR integration to further enhance immersive control.