Designing mobile systems at enterprise scale

A tool for dealership technicians to complete complex service tasks in high-pressure environments.

$17M

annual operational savings

6 → 1

tools consolidated

65%

adoption increase

40%

faster report submission

01 . Context

Overview

CSMT is a mobile application used by dealership service teams to document service cases and escalate issues to General Motors for support.

My contributions

  • Designing the end-to-end mobile experience

  • Conducting field research and technician interviews

  • Translating research insights into product features

  • Prototyping and delivering production-ready designs

  • Collaborating with product and engineering through launch

original landing page
original home screen

★ Results

The redesign improved clarity and efficiency for technicians completing complex service tasks in the field.

Consolidating six separate service workflows into a single mobile platform reduced report submission time by approximately 40% and contributed to more than $17M in annual operational savings.

skip to impact and outcomes ↓

Background

CSMT began as a single-purpose mobile tool for dealership technicians, but over time additional features were layered in as new needs emerged.

What started as a focused utility evolved into a broader operational tool used across dealerships, field teams, and corporate stakeholders. Because the application was never designed to support this level of growth, the experience became increasingly fragmented.

Workflows expanded without a consistent structure, navigation became harder to predict, and critical actions were often unclear during time-sensitive service tasks. As adoption grew across thousands of technicians and dealerships, the limitations of the original foundation became more visible and harder to ignore.

02 . Process

understanding workflows requires being where the work happens

Interviews

Research was conducted through dealership visits and technician interviews across multiple GM locations. Observing service advisors, technicians, and managers in the service lane helped reveal how work actually unfolded beyond what usage data showed.

Synthesizing interviews

After the interviews, I organized my notes in FigJam and grouped observations into key themes. From there, I identified a set of opportunities to improve clarity, workflow structure, and task completion.

Competitive analysis

I reviewed a range of mobile and enterprise applications used in service, logistics, and operational environments to understand how complex workflows, task status, and field reporting were structured.

This helped identify patterns that could improve clarity and efficiency within CSMT.

Internal audit workshop

I facilitated a collaborative audit workshop with designers and product partners to review the existing application screen by screen.

Together we documented usability issues, unclear workflows, and interaction inconsistencies to build a shared understanding of the product’s challenges.

★ Key themes

Across field research, benchmarking, and the internal audit, several patterns consistently surfaced.

  • No updates or training on newly released features

  • Critical actions were not clearly prioritized

  • Navigation paths were inconsistent across workflows

  • Technicians had difficulty understanding task status and next steps

  • Information needed to complete cases was spread across multiple screens

The problem wasn’t individual workflows. It was how the system surfaced information.

How might the system surface the right information at the right time?

Understanding the service workflow

Using insights from field research and interviews, I created a user journey to map how service appointments move through the dealership. The journey revealed how work is spread across multiple roles, tools, and handoffs, creating delays, duplicated effort, and opportunities for information to be lost between systems.

★ Key friction points identified

  • Information moves across multiple disconnected systems

  • Manual steps introduce delays and errors

  • Redundant verification slows the service lane

  • Data capture is unreliable during busy service periods

System Workflow Analysis

After mapping the service lane experience, I analyzed how service cases moved through internal systems. This helped identify where information was duplicated, delayed, or lost between dealerships and GM teams.

workflow analysis showing how service cases move between dealerships and GM support teams

Research insights that shaped the design

Patterns observed during field research and workflow analysis revealed several underlying factors influencing how technicians used the system.

Designing for real environments

Observing technicians move between vehicles, tools, and conversations highlighted how different real service workflows are from how systems are often designed.

Systems must evolve over time

Because CSMT had grown from a single tool into a multi-feature platform, designing flexible structures was just as important as improving individual screens.

Operational context matters

Technicians use the app alongside physical tasks, interruptions, and shifting attention, requiring quick and simple interactions.

Field research changes decisions

Spending time in dealerships surfaced issues that would not appear in analytics or requirements alone, helping prioritize changes that had the greatest impact.

Restructuring the application architecture

As CSMT expanded beyond its original scope, the application structure needed to support multiple workflows and features. Before designing screens, I restructured the application architecture and explored navigation flows to create a clearer foundation for the growing platform.

early exploration of the CSMT navigation and feature structure

Final designs

The final designs focused on simplifying navigation and making it easier for technicians to access key tools and actions throughout the application. Below are a few examples of updates that improved how users navigated the system, accessed information, and created new reports during daily service workflows.

Header

I designed a global header that provided consistent access to navigation and notifications, ensuring technicians could quickly check updates or move between areas of the application at any point.

Notification inbox

I introduced a centralized notification area where technicians could review updates, case changes, and important alerts without interrupting their workflow.

Global actions

I introduced global actions that allowed technicians to return home or create a new report from anywhere in the application, reducing the need to navigate through individual feature screens.

These changes created a clearer foundation for how technicians navigate features and stay informed across the app.

03 . Conclusion

Impact and outcomes

Together, these changes improved how technicians navigate, act, and stay informed while completing service cases. By restructuring the application and consolidating workflows into a single mobile platform, the system became easier to use and better equipped to support continued growth across dealerships.

  • Supported more efficient service workflows for 80,000+ technicians globally

  • Generated ~$17M in estimated annual operational impact through fewer errors and faster resolution

  • Increased platform adoption by 65% as workflows became easier to navigate

  • Consolidated six tools into a single mobile application

Designing CSMT reinforced the importance of building systems that can evolve over time, especially in operational environments where speed, clarity, and reliability directly impact daily work.

Next project →
General Motors: Template Tiger