CSE Software

SimU - Construction Equipment Simulator

SimU - Construction Equipment Simulator
Year
2022
Role
Lead Visual and UX Designer
Company
CSE Software
Project Type
UI/UX Design

What is SimU?

SimU is a heavy construction equipment simulator & educational platform developed by CSE Software and Simformotion. The platform is primarily used from a multimonitor simulator like the one below.

Image of one of the many simulator setups

The Challenge

The Interface for SimU wasn't exactly the most intuitive or user friendly. The UI was outdated and wasn't created with a friendly user experience in mind. Additionally, the way SimU gets new clients is at trade shows; Keeping a UI that stands out from the crowd while maintaining a good user experience was paramount to its success.

Screenshot of the original SimU admin UI

Initial Research

For research I primarily did personas and user flows. This was because the team had loose ideas of where to go but weren't 100% sure on features and functions. Using these personas and user flows I helped nail down those features with the users in mind. The personas that I created are below.

Persona
Persona

User flows are not shown due to client request.

Ideation of the UI

The UI went through many iterations and changes before it landed upon the final design. Below are some of the iterations:

As we honed into a final idea and requirements I started to experiment further with more striking designs. This helped with the goal of differentiating itself from the competition while keeping the user experience in mind.

Below is the process I used to develop the final UI as well as many of the previous concepts.

First iteration of final UI in wireframe.
Progressing through the wireframe and adding new elements in.
First Styled concept of UI.

The Final UI

The UI reached a state where we felt it was a strong iteration and the team began to proceed with development. Below is a video of the UI in action.

Development

The difference between many of my previous projects and this one is that this is actually being developed. Throughout the project I was sure to keep the development in mind, understanding what may be difficult to translate from prototype to product. Keeping this in mind helped the project turn out better and hept development time reasonable.

CAT and Caterpillar are registered trademarks of Caterpillar Inc*

Get in
touch and
say hi.