The New Zealand Transport Agency needed a new incident and roadwork management system for the country’s traffic control centres.

The environment was operationally complex and highly time sensitive. Before designing solutions, we needed to understand how operators actually worked, where friction existed and what problems were creating the most pressure day to day.

As the sole UX designer, I worked across research, workflow analysis and product strategy in close collaboration with operators and the delivery team.

The Challenge

Traffic control operators managed incidents across multiple disconnected systems while working under constant time pressure.

The initial assumption was that the project required a better interface. But early conversations suggested the deeper problem might be operational rather than visual.

The goal became understanding where cognitive overload, inefficiency and workflow breakdowns were occurring across the broader system.

Research Approach

I conducted in-depth interviews with operators across different roles and levels of experience, including:

• Team leads

• Senior and newer operators

• Traffic light operators

• Management

This helped uncover both day to day operational challenges and larger systemic issues across the control centres.

What We Learned

The research revealed that operators spent significant time manually transferring information between disconnected systems.

The issue was not a lack of functionality. It was constant context switching, duplicated data entry and cognitive overload during high pressure situations.

This shifted the project direction entirely.

Rather than designing a more polished interface for existing workflows, the focus became reducing operational complexity and unnecessary mental load.

My Contribution

I worked closely with operators, developers and delivery teams throughout the project lifecycle.

My role extended beyond interface design into:

• Research and workflow analysis

• Requirements gathering

• User story development

• Product and delivery collaboration

• Ongoing validation of usability and technical feasibility

A large part of the work involved translating operational realities into practical product decisions that could work within delivery constraints.

Product Direction

The research shaped two core priorities:

1. Reduce cognitive load

   Every design and product decision was evaluated against one question:

   “Would this simplify the operator’s mental workload during critical situations?”

2. Reduce manual system work

   Instead of improving fragmented workflows visually, we focused on reducing duplicated data entry and unnecessary system switching.

This led to a more focused product with fewer but more meaningful features aligned closely to real operational needs.

Outcome

The project helped align product decisions around actual operator workflows rather than assumptions about what users needed.

For me, it reinforced the value of research as a tool for reducing complexity and helping teams avoid solving the wrong problem.

It remains one of the most meaningful projects I have worked on because the impact extended far beyond the interface itself.