National Carwash Solutions | Creative Circle
Role
UX/UI Design
Client Overview
National Carwash Solutions is the standout leader among car wash equipment manufacturers in North America. Since 1973, they’ve served the car wash industry with excellence, growing to become the premiere provider of high-quality car wash equipment, full-spectrum car wash service and sustainable chemistry.
The Challenge
Entering the competitive software controller market for the first time, NCS needed to move quickly to define and design their MVP. The challenge was to design a modern, role-based user interface that could support a range of user needs from the ground up.
Project Goals
Based on our core personas—Wash Attendants, Service Technicians, and Site Managers/Owners—and the insights and opportunity areas uncovered during discovery, the goals for the MVP were to:
- Design a clean, modern touchscreen HMI that emphasizes readability, spacing, and iconography.
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Deliver role-based dashboards that surface the most critical metrics and controls for each user type, reducing information overload.
- Design an accessible color theme that works well in high-glare and industrial environments
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Establish a scalable design system with reusable components, ensuring visual consistency and speeding up future feature development.
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Highlight high-value opportunities uncovered in our discovery phase and feedback loops.
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Validate workflows early through rapid prototyping and stakeholder feedback loops, preparing the MVP for on-site usability testing.
The Process
I lead the design collaboratively through a mix of user-centered and agile design methods (UCAD). Understanding the requirements, users and their pain points gave me the insights to empathize.
Discovery
The discovery stage began by conducting in-depth stakeholder interviews to understand the business goals and users. These conversations helped shape core personas, uncover user goals and challenges early on. From there, I dove into a competitive analysis to see how similar dashboards handled features, layout, and overall UX. Outlining key insights and design opportunities guided the direction of the MVP.
Personas
Competitor Overview
| Competitor | Product Type | Key Users |
|---|---|---|
| DRB Systems | HMI + Software Suite | Managers, Technicians |
| ICS | Touchscreen HMI | Attendants, Operators |
| Sonny’s Controls | Industrial Touch Interface | Technicians |
| Washify | Admin Panel (Web UI) | Owners, Admins |
Feature/UI Comparison Matrix
| Feature | DRB | ICS | Sonny’s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Touchscreen Optimization | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Real-time Equipment Monitoring | ✔ | ✔ | — |
| Visual Alert System | ✔ | — | — |
| Role-based Access | ✔ | — | — |
| Custom Wash Cycle Control | ✔ | ✔ | — |
Insights & Opportunities
| Insight | Opportunity |
|---|---|
| Most competitor HMIs lack visual clarity, resulting in dense and cognitively demanding interfaces. | Design a clean, modern touchscreen HMI that emphasizes readability, spacing, and iconography. |
| Interfaces lack consistency from page to page. Systems use old, outdated controls. | Establish a scalable design system with reusable components, ensuring visual consistency and speeding up future feature development. |
| Most users thought most high contrast interfaces were too gray and boring, they want to see something nicer with more colors. | Design an accessible color theme that works well in high-glare environments with careful use of brand colors. |
| Hard to find settings in critical scenarios. Settings are often buried deep in pages. | Implement role-based views or modes that streamline workflows while allowing power users access to advanced controls. |
| Many systems rely heavily on jargon or engineering terminology. | Translate system feedback into user-friendly language aligned with real-world operations (e.g., “Nozzle Blocked” instead of “Line Fault B”). |
Foundations
The brand’s color palette was adapted into a WCAG-compliant dark theme, optimized for readability in both low-light conditions and glare-prone industrial environments. At the same, early sketches from NCS were translated into wireframes, using them as a starting point for stakeholder feedback loops.
Color
Wireframes
Design System
Because of the agile nature of of the project, all components and states were built on a as needed basis. The design system comprised of theme colors, standard components and custom components.
Visual Design
The visual design focused on clarity, accessibility, and brand alignment. The dark theme was refined with high-contrast elements for readability in industrial environments. Typography, spacing, and iconography were used to create clear hierarchy, support quick scanning, and reduce cognitive load.
Prototypes
Prototypes were built to validate various user and task flows. Per the MVP requirements, we designed role-based features for Wash Attendants and Service Technicians. The ability to customize Wash Packages and System Settings was also built to fulfil testing requirements.
Outcomes
During our pilot testing, we had users conduct tasks around the features we scoped and built for the MVP. We would rate their experience using the System Usability Scale (SUS). We also provided opportunities to capture bugs, feature requests and general feedback before test site deployment. With a score of 74.3, stakeholders could get a clear gauge on the usability of the system.
On-Site Test Plan
The test plan encompassed multi-site validation in real-world operational environments. Participants were to include site administrators, wash attendants, and service technicians. The HMI design supported a narrow set of essential functions including daily operations, system configuration, service diagnostics, and error handling.
Test Methods:
Observational usability studies, task-based scenario testing, and structured feedback collection using the System Usability Scale (SUS) survey. Qualitative insights gathered through open-ended interviews.
Test Period:
4 weeks across 4 operational locations
Reporting:
Data compiled weekly and reviewed mid-term and at the end of the 4-week period. A final report would summarize quantitative metrics and qualitative findings.
Reflections
Designing the MVP required a sharp focus on core user needs, especially for frontline carwash staff and site-level operations. While the feature set was intentionally limited to ensure a timely and testable release, we documented all the pain points to address in future development.
The company also offers a mobile app with basic monitoring features. As the broader ecosystem evolves, plans are in place to integrate POS systems to streamline operations end-to-end.
This project sharpened my ability to design under constraints, prioritize user value, and create alignment between business goals and user experience. It also reinforced the importance of designing with extensibility in mind — building a system that’s minimal yet ready to scale.
