Streamlining the user experience and ease of use of Syroco Live

Last week, the Syroco team deployed a new version of the Syroco Live platform for weather routing and voyage optimisation. This new release is the fruit of months of work by Syroco’s engineering and product team and of hundreds of feedback points collected through discussions and interactions with bridge officers.

The feedback process

Every day, the Syroco Onwatch and customer success teams are exchanging with captains, navigation officers, fleet managers, etc. Occasions are as diverse as training a new crew on how to use the solution, presenting the results of past voyages and analysing the savings generated by the routing, or reviewing an evolving weather system that requires adjustments to the voyage. 

Every one of these interactions via phone, visio, email or chat is an opportunity to collect feedback on the solution: its user interface, its usage workflow, the relevance of route proposals, the accuracy of fuel savings, etc. Feedbacks are tracked internally, categorised, and discussed during both project review and product planning meetings. 

Over the course of the past few months, a topic has been repeatedly coming up: the usability of the Syroco Live web app could be improved. Some users were finding the route selection workflow to be cumbersome. Screen space could be better used for route map visualisation. The weather analysis was not practical for very long voyages. Etc. 

Ease of use at the core

Ease of use is of the utmost importance. A weather routing and voyage optimisation solution only brings value if it is used day in and day out by bridge officers. So even before measuring the savings brought by Syroco, we know we must focus on adoption, and ease of use is often the first barrier that prevents adoption. (Other barriers can include impractical advice and inaccurate savings calculations, we’ll discuss these topics in other posts).

Therefore, in the most recent development cycles, a huge focus was placed on UX improvements. The product team collated and prioritised the numerous feedback collected, pitches were written, UI mockups were produced, and development started. (It all sounds easy, right?)

What changes - and what does not

At a high level, the UX/UI changes introduced in this new version fall into the following categories:

  • Overall improvements to the visual appearance of the interface, including an expansion of the space available for the map.
  • Display of Voyage Parameters, that were previously not available after a voyage had been started.
  • Centralisation of user settings in one location.
  • Improvement of the route and weather analysis tools including a redesigned time slider.

new_live_ux_2.png

First comments

Of course, a new release comes with a degree of anxiety... Will the deployment happen smoothly? How will users receive these changes? 

Deployment happened without a glitch. This is a clear testament to the great work of our development and quality assurance teams, and the professionalism of our devops. 

Users are happy about the new version. 48 hours after launch, we had recorded a usage ratio over 90%. And we received very positive feedback from captains. Here are a few verbatims:  

  • “Many thanks. Looks better and user friendly.” (Master of a heavy lift cargo vessel)
  • “Love the new sliding bar at the bottom for checking weather.” (Second Officer on a containership)
  • “New icons and colour palette are very nice.” (Master of a LNG carrier)
  • “Much easier to find my way around the app. Thanks.” (Navigation Officer on a tanker) 

Thanks to all for your ongoing trust, and be assured we’ll continue to strive to provide the best possible experience!