Tranzport Cards: Optimizing Dashboard TableTranzport Cards: Optimizing Dashboard Table

The table was unstable, slow to load, and had a horizontal scroll. The original team built the app on Material Design to ship fast and stay focused on profitability. As features and customization piled up, the table slowed down and got harder to navigate — most of the pain was the horizontal scroll. Dispatchers had to scroll down and sideways to check a single load, which slowed them to a crawl.

Custom problem, custom solution. A custom lane component packed about 3× more information into the same space, organized in a way that made sense to dispatchers. Notifications consolidated into one part of the table. Fully responsive, so dispatchers can keep eyes on loads from any device.

I ran a survey with five dispatchers — their process, where it hurt, and what they wanted the next version to do.

• Dispatchers always multitask, always against the clock
• The load ID and the lane (pickup, dropoff, dates) are what dispatchers actually scan for
• They need status updates constantly
• The competitor apps are decades old and pack too much into too little space

The first idea was to keep the table and just freeze a few key columns. That gave dispatchers a visual anchor for the load ID and the available actions. Next step was putting it in front of dispatchers to see if it actually helped.

I went back to the dispatchers with the design. It helped a little, but they still struggled to scan the dashboard, and the horizontal scroll was still painful. The problem wasn't going to be solved by tweaking the table.

The developers, CTO, product manager, and I argued about whether the interface should change at all. Their position was that the dashboard had been there a long time and didn't need a big rewrite. I was sure we could build something better and more useful, even if it meant accepting some risk. We took the risk.

I needed to group information more aggressively, and do it in a way that worked across screen sizes. The groups had to make sense for how dispatchers scan: around the lane (pickup, dropoff, dates, miles) — the fields they actually rely on.

We validated again with stakeholders and dispatchers, getting fantastic feedback and excitement.

The dispatchers were on board. The developers and stakeholders could see my vision and the benefits of taking the long road.

The custom-component card layout has been in production since 2020. Dispatchers got more productive, and the table became one of the parts of the platform the company is known for.