Porter is a logistics platform connecting businesses and individuals with truck and tempo drivers for on-demand goods transport. Despite a growing user base, the app was struggling to convert intent into completed bookings. Over a 5-month engagement, I led a full app redesign — from on-ground user research and persona development, through strategy and information architecture, to final designs covering everything from illustrations and icons to end-to-end booking flows.
Porter's core problem ran deeper than visual inconsistency. The team did not have a clear picture of who their users were, what kinds of jobs they were trying to get done, and where the experience was failing them. Without that foundation, any redesign risked solving the wrong problems.
The app's booking flow was broken. Inconsistent screen designs disrupted the sense of progress, leaving users uncertain about where they were in the process and what came next. To compensate, users were constantly navigating back and forth — making the digital experience feel slower than simply finding a driver on the street. For many, that is exactly what they did.
The project began on the ground. I conducted multiple rounds of research with different user types — small business owners, individual movers, regular shippers — observing how they interacted with the app in real contexts, not just in controlled settings. This fieldwork surfaced patterns that would not have been visible from analytics alone.
From the research, I identified distinct user personas with different mental models, priorities, and pain points. This became the strategic backbone of the redesign. Every design decision was evaluated against what we now knew about how these users thought and what they needed to feel confident completing a booking.
The redesigned booking experience addressed the core problem directly: users did not know where they were or how much was left. I introduced an overview of all required steps upfront, giving users a mental map of the journey before they began.
I applied Hick's Law to reduce cognitive load at each step: rather than presenting all options at once, the flow broke complex decisions into smaller, sequential choices. Each screen had one clear job. Progress felt visible and achievable, not opaque and endless. The result was a booking experience that felt faster — not because the number of steps changed, but because users stopped second-guessing themselves.
The original app had features that users simply were not finding. A restructured information architecture brought the most important actions closer to the surface, reducing the navigational depth needed to complete key tasks. New users could orient themselves quickly; returning users could move with confidence. The IA was informed directly by the persona research — different user types had different entry points and goals.
The redesign extended to every visual touchpoint. I designed a cohesive illustration and icon system that gave the app a consistent, ownable visual voice — one that felt approachable without sacrificing the functional clarity a logistics product requires. In a booking flow where trust matters — users are handing over goods and money — a polished, coherent interface signals reliability.
The redesign was handed off at the end of the 5-month engagement — a complete set of designs covering the entire app, ready for engineering implementation. Redesigns at this scale carry inherent risk, and Porter's journey to launch reflected that reality: it took two years from handoff to live product.
What made the wait worthwhile was the foundation the project laid. The research work gave Porter a shared language for talking about their users. The design system gave the team a consistent base to build from. And the restructured booking flow gave users an experience that finally matched the simplicity of the service itself.
Porter reinforced something important: you cannot design your way out of a strategy problem. The most valuable work on this project happened before a single screen was drawn — in conversations with real users, in understanding their mental models, in defining what success actually looked like for each type of person using the app.
It also taught me patience. A 5-month design engagement leading to a 2-year launch timeline is a reminder that design is just one part of a much larger system.