SaaS solution to manage OTA operations on vehicle fleet
Reading time
9 minutes
Tags
Product Design, SaaS, Automotive
Project Overview
Scope of Project
Project Details
Preface: The Value of Three Years of Experience
When I talk about this project, the first question I'm always asked is the same: "Three years on a single project? Isn't that too long?" The answer is as complex as the project itself. In an era where digital projects often last just a few months and where agility is frequently interpreted as speed for its own sake, having had the opportunity to follow a project from conception to production over three full years represents a unique formative experience.
It's not just about longevity, but about depth. Working on a project of this duration means seeing your design decisions live over time, evolve, and adapt. It means confronting the long-term consequences of architectural choices, experiencing the real impact of adopted methodologies, and witnessing the maturation of both a team and a product.
Over three years, I was able to observe how the design system we had built performed under pressure, how it reacted to the introduction of new requirements, and how truly scalable it was beyond initial predictions. I saw workflows that seemed perfect reveal their limitations, and I had to learn the difficult art of progressive refactoring without ever stopping the machine.
But above all, I understood that truly complex projects—those that change how companies operate—cannot be solved in two-week sprints. They require time to mature, to be deeply understood, to find elegant solutions to problems that initially seem impossible to solve.
This case study therefore tells not only the story of an IoT platform, but that of a designer who had the fortune to grow alongside his project, learning that true mastery in design doesn't lie in solving simple problems quickly, but in having the patience and perseverance to tackle complex challenges with the time horizon they deserve.
September 2022: the company's most strategic project was in crisis. The development team, after months of work, couldn't even structure the first use case of a SaaS platform designed to manage Over-The-Air updates for one of the world's largest automotive manufacturers. This is when I joined as a Designer, tasked with unblocking a seemingly problematic situation.
The challenge was complex: we needed to create a unified platform to manage the fragmented technological ecosystem of a recent corporate merger. Different brands, heterogeneous technologies, and the need to harmonize completely different approaches to connected vehicle management.
The Starting Context
The Domain Complexity
The platform had to integrate business-critical functionalities: vehicle registration from the plant, preparation of customized software packages, industrial-scale OTA campaign management, real-time monitoring, and on-demand service configuration. All of this with differentiated authorization levels for specific user types.
But the real challenge was temporal. We not only had to recover from accumulated delays, but work one sprint ahead of the development team to allow them to proceed without interruptions.
The Paradigm Shift
January 2023 marked an important turning point. The Product Owners asked to move directly to prototypes with final UI, eliminating the wireframe phase. This seemingly problematic request turned out to be an opportunity to completely rethink our design approach.
If we had to deliver final UIs from the start, we needed to create a system that would allow us to do so while maintaining quality and consistency. The solution was developing a custom design system based on Nebular, optimized for our specific domain.
Building the Design System
Between January and March 2023, we built a design system that was simple to use, easy to maintain, and scalable for the future. It wasn't just about creating a component library, but defining a shared design philosophy that could adapt to the continuous evolution of automotive requirements.
The design system allowed us to drastically accelerate delivery, eliminating the wireframe-to-UI transition and ensuring visual consistency across the entire platform. For the first time since the project began, the development team had ready-to-use materials without interpretive ambiguities.
Organizational Optimization
Spring 2023 was dedicated to optimizing work processes. We structured an ecosystem of interconnected Figma projects, organized by quarter to better manage the growing complexity of the project.
In parallel, we developed dedicated documentation files, creating an archive of design decisions that allowed anyone on the team to understand the rationale behind every choice. This attention to documentation proved fundamental for maintaining consistency during team member changes. We introduced design versioning.
The Consolidation
July 2023 represented a turning point. The workflow was finally consolidated and functioning smoothly. For the first time, we completed consecutive sprints without spillover, regressions were drastically reduced, and the team found a sustainable work rhythm.
The optimized sprint feature segmentation allowed the development team to work more simply, while we could focus on researching and designing future functionalities while always maintaining that necessary sprint lead.
Technological Innovation
The introduction of variables in Figma in summer 2023 opened new possibilities. We integrated a color variable system that enabled automatic generation of dark mode prototype variants.
This approach significantly reduced delivery time and ensured greater consistency in visual theme management. Automating previously manual processes freed up valuable time to dedicate to solving more complex design problems.
The Challenge of Continuous Evolution
One of the most challenging characteristics of the project was the constant introduction of new vehicle architectures. Every six months, devices with different characteristics, specific capabilities, and unique technical requirements arrived. This continuous flow of novelties created information overload that risked compromising interface usability.
Our strategy was to create an information architecture flexible enough to accommodate new content types without losing consistency.
Rethinking Navigation
The 2024 design retrospectives highlighted an important opportunity. The interface, organized around individual operations, was becoming chaotic with increasing complexity. The solution was to group functionalities by operation type: everything related to vehicles in one area, software in another, campaigns in a third.
This approach made navigation more intuitive, allowing users to orient themselves based on the object they wanted to work on rather than the specific action to perform.
The Great Refactoring
January 2025: faced with the growing heterogeneity of supported devices, we made the decision to perform a complete refactoring of the information architecture. A bold choice just months before release, but necessary to ensure the platform's future scalability.
The refactoring wasn't just technical but conceptual: we had to rethink how we presented increasingly complex information while maintaining ease of use for operators (read more about the topic here).
The Results
April 2025: the first real vehicle test validated years of theoretical work. Seeing the platform function on actual hardware, with all its sensors, ECUs, and communication systems, was the definitive verification moment.
June 2025: the production release marked the project's completion. A platform used daily by operators worldwide to manage updates on millions of vehicles.
Lessons Learned
This project demonstrated the importance of building design systems that are both robust and flexible. In complex contexts like automotive IoT, the ability to quickly adapt to new requirements is as important as the solidity of the initial foundations.
The investment in automation and documentation proved crucial for managing the scale and duration of the project. Automating repetitive processes not only improves efficiency but frees cognitive resources to tackle truly complex problems.
Finally, we learned that in projects of this magnitude, success depends as much on design decisions as on the ability to build sustainable workflows over the long term. Technology evolves rapidly, but the processes that enable teams to work effectively together remain the determining factor for success.
The transformation from an initial crisis situation into a successful platform used on a global scale demonstrates how a methodical approach to design, supported by appropriate tools and well-structured processes, can manage even the most complex challenges of enterprise design.
