02 / CASE STUDY
Asset Tracker
Modernizing the management and tracking of IT assets.
Role
Product Designer
Team
4 Product Designers
1 Project Lead
Client
WSIB Innovation Lab
Tools
Figma
Maze
Timeline
May 2024 - August 2024
01 · CONTEXT
The WSIB Innovation Lab is a multidisciplinary team focused on designing and testing digital solutions that improve workplace safety across Ontario. Through agile sprints, diverse co-op talent, and close collaboration between design and development, the Lab rapidly experiments, iterates, and brings ideas to life.
02 · PROBLEM SPACE
How do you keep track of dozens of laptops, cables, and monitors across a rotating workforce without relying on outdated spreadsheets?
Our design team set out to solve this with a digital asset tracker: a tool that uses QR codes to connect physical devices to a digital system.
Skip to Final Designs ↓
03 · USER RESEARCH
User interviews surfaced friction hidden inside everyday workflows.
By talking to department managers and team leads, we learned how assets were tracked, pain points with current tools, and desired improvements. Key questions that were asked:
Who within the team tracks the assets?
What is the current process of tracking assets?
How often do devices get cycled?
How are maintenance processes handled?
What are some difficulties you encountered?
After synthesizing our findings using affinity mapping, some common themes that came up:
01Asset tracking responsibilities are often unclear and inconsistently documented.
02Spreadsheets are time-consuming, error-prone, and lack visibility across teams.
03Users want a quick way to bulk assign or return assets during onboarding/offboarding.
04 · INITIAL DESIGNS
Design critiques quickly revealed what wasn’t working.
Our team received early-stage concepts and rough wireframes from a previous design cohort. Early feedback from team critiques helped us identify usability and consistency issues that would shape the direction of our redesign. These sessions were crucial in aligning on layout, interaction patterns, visual clarity, and feature functionality.
05 · HOME SCREEN
Design tradeoffs: Sometimes less is more.
We redesigned the home screen to create a clearer, more focused experience. By simplifying the layout and restructuring navigation, users can now access key information more efficiently.
Grouped search and filter function.
Emphasized add asset/employee action.
Separated assets & users in nav bar.
Overhauled list layout.
Made the experience more visual.
Reprioritized metadata.
06 · BATCH VS. SINGLE SCAN
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate…
After extensive critique sessions, we shifted away from mode-based scanning and introduced a cart-style batch experience. Leveraging a familiar mental model, the design allows users to scan assets freely, see what’s been collected, and take action when ready, without interrupting the physical scanning flow.
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07 · USER TESTING & METRICS
Data validation: Success Metrics
User testing on Maze confirmed that the revised scanning experience improved clarity and confidence without sacrificing speed, validating the design tradeoff of explicit review in a data-heavy workflow. Some key metrics:
90.9%end-to-end task success rate, low drop-off (9.1%)
38sAverage completion time to scan and review three assets
94%positive or neutral participant feedback
User Testing / Report on Maze ↗
08 · FINAL PROJECT SHOWCASE
Final Designs
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09 · NEXT STEPS
After validating the core MVP, designs were handed off to the next cohort to finalize and expand based on technical scoping and implementation constraints.
Future work includes clarifying asset scope across device types, refining notification and approval flows, addressing edge cases such as duplicate assets or employees, and exploring scalability considerations like batch actions, imports, and responsiveness.
These directions were intentionally documented to ensure continuity and allow the next team to build on a well-tested foundation rather than revisit early design decisions.
10 · REFLECTION & TAKEAWAYS
Thanks to everyone at WSIB!
Over the term, I learned SO MUCH from my fellow designers. Whether it was tips on animating within Figma, design best practices, or dealing with variables and advanced prototyping, I owe so much of my growth to them <3.
group photo of the design team :)