Repair Orders
Follow jobs from customer and vehicle intake through completion.
Design concept explored in the original case studyAutoBuddy · Product / UX case study
Turning an auto-garage's everyday operations into one product.
I explored how independent auto garages could move from fragmented, manual workflows to a more connected digital workspace for managing customers, vehicles, repairs, inventory and payments.
I owned the product exploration from research and problem definition through UX, prototyping and usability testing.
01 · Understanding the work
Understanding what actually happens inside a garage.
Before designing, I needed to understand the operation: the people doing the work, the workflows they followed, and the tools already in use.
Interviews, a survey, competitive analysis, and field insights revealed a fragmented environment where customers, mechanics, owners, and records were often connected through manual or disconnected processes.
- 6
- Garage professionals interviewed
- Survey
- Garage operations and workflows
- Competitive analysis
- Existing garage-management solutions
- Field insights
- Customers, mechanics, and owners
02 · From research to product
Turning messy workflows into a product system.
The research helped identify the core areas that needed to connect, rather than treating every garage task as a separate feature.
- 01Research
- 02Insights
- 03Opportunities
- 04Information architecture
- 05Prototype
- 06Test
- 07Iterate
The goal was not simply to digitize individual tasks. It was to shape a connected workspace around garage operations.
03 · Designing the experience
From fragmented workflows to one workspace.
I translated the product system into a mobile-first experience that brought the operation's recurring workflows closer together. The idea was to build AutoBuddy as a progressive web app (PWA), allowing the same connected workspace to adapt across desktop and mobile.
Inventory
Keep parts, stock levels, and usage connected to the work.
Design concept explored in the original case studyPopular Services
Reuse service packages instead of rebuilding common work each time.
Design concept explored in the original case studyBusiness Overview
Create visibility across the operation from one workspace.
Design concept explored in the original case study04 · Usability testing
Testing didn’t just validate the design. It changed it.
Three participants who had worked in or owned an auto repair or maintenance business in the prior 12 months completed a remote, moderated Think Aloud test using Figma Mirror and Lookback.
All assigned key tasks were completed. The overall System Usability Scale result was described as “good”; no numeric score was reported.
- Create account
- 98s
- Create repair order
- 115s
- Create counter sale order
- 102s
- Book new inventory
- 75s
Observation
Garages repeat common services.
Insight
Common work should be reusable.
Product response
Popular Services.
New flow
Select service → automatically configure repair order.
Popular Services became the main iteration story. Testing exposed an opportunity to preconfigure pricing, taxes, inventory changes and charges, and labor charges for repeated work.
- Make progress through a task more visible.
- Prevent errors around the floating create-order action.
- Improve access to help and documentation.
05 · My contribution
Across the product loop.
I worked across the lifecycle, connecting research, product definition, interaction design, and validation rather than treating design as a standalone phase.
Research → Insight → Opportunity → Prototype → Test → Iteration
- Product discovery
- User research
- Problem definition
- Competitive analysis
- Information architecture
- UX/UI design
- Prototyping
- Usability testing
- Product iteration
06 · What I learned
Three lessons I carried forward.
Start with workflow, not screen
Understanding how the garage operated made it possible to design the relationships between tasks before deciding how any single screen should work.
Test product, not assumptions
Task completion showed that the core flows worked, while observation revealed where the product model still needed to change.
Good products reduce repeated decisions
Popular Services turned recurring work into reusable setup, reducing the need to reconstruct pricing, taxes, inventory, and labor each time.
Original case study