Data tables built for power users

01

Context

Data tables sit at the centre of nearly every workflow within CargoWise. They are used by logistics operators to search, compare, edit, validate, and process operational data across hundreds of modules.

Over time, the platform evolved across multiple technologies and paradigms including WinForms, Glow 1, Glow 2, and Supply. That created fragmented behaviours, inconsistent UX patterns, and growing gaps between legacy and web experiences.

At the same time, operators relied heavily on advanced functionality such as shortcuts, saved layouts, filtering, colour schemes, bulk editing, and high-density information display. The challenge wasn’t simply modernising the UI. It was preserving the power and efficiency expert users depended on while creating a scalable and coherent foundation for the future platform.

02

The problem

The existing experience suffered from a set of overlapping tensions that couldn’t be solved with a cosmetic redesign alone.

• Legacy parity vs modern UX
• Flexibility vs usability
• Consistency vs contextual needs
• Performance vs visibility
• Simplicity vs expert efficiency

03

Research & discovery

The project began as a large-scale research initiative to better understand how enterprise data tables were actually being used across the platform.

The research combined current-state audits across WinForms, Glow 1, and Glow 2, competitor analysis, partner interviews, designer workshops, incident analysis, and collaboration with engineering teams.

One of the most important findings was that tables served two fundamentally different purposes: jumping-off points for analysis and navigation, and working surfaces for high-frequency editing. Treating those as the same interaction model had created significant usability confusion across the platform.

Another major insight was that customisation was not an edge case. Users heavily relied on custom columns, saved layouts, filters, density settings, colour schemes, and shortcuts as a core part of their workflow.

04

Strategic decisions

This phase focused on defining scalable behavioural patterns and interaction principles rather than isolated screen states.

One of the most debated decisions was choosing lazy loading over traditional pagination. Pagination initially appeared cleaner from a UI perspective, but created major friction in CargoWise’s operational context by fragmenting visibility, disrupting keyboard workflows, and increasing cognitive load during bulk tasks.

Lazy loading aligned more closely with how expert operators actually worked: scanning large continuous datasets, navigating quickly by keyboard, and performing high-frequency edits without losing context.

Another major challenge involved bulk selection workflows. Most competitor products hid configuration controls while users were building selections. I explored a floating bulk action approach that preserved access to sorting, filtering, density settings, and column configuration so users could keep reshaping the data while making large selections.

The key principle was prioritising operational efficiency over simplified UI conventions.

05

Designing the system

The outcome was not a single UI redesign. It became a broader behavioural and interaction framework for enterprise data workflows.

The work covered editable vs read-only table behaviours, toolbar and configuration architecture, layouts and saved views, keyboard accelerators, bulk actions, validation handling, density controls, filtering paradigms, colour systems, and future alternate views.

It also established stronger foundations for AI-assisted workflows, workflow automation, personalisation, and platform-wide consistency.

06

Collaboration & leadership

The project required alignment across designers, engineers, platform teams, product stakeholders, support teams, and external partners.

To drive that alignment, I coordinated a dedicated working group, facilitated workshops and critiques, presented research findings and design rationale, documented strategic recommendations, and collaborated closely with development teams on technical feasibility.

Because tables touched nearly every operational workflow in the platform, stakeholder management became as important as interface design itself.

07

Outcome & impact

The redesign established a significantly stronger foundation for enterprise table experiences across CargoWise.

• Clearer behavioural patterns across table types
• Stronger consistency between products and platforms
• Improved support for expert operational workflows
• Scalable design system foundations
• Improved discoverability of advanced functionality
• Modernised interaction patterns for web-based enterprise tooling

08

Reflection

This project fundamentally reshaped how I think about enterprise UX.

One of the biggest lessons was that operational complexity is not inherently bad UX. In many enterprise environments, complexity exists because the work itself is genuinely complex.

The role of design is not always to remove complexity entirely, but to organise it, clarify it, guide users through it confidently, and preserve efficiency for expert users. That principle has become central to my broader design approach.