FordPass Pro — Designing a Global App for Small Fleets

The Challenge

 

This wasn’t a simple reskin of FordPass. FordPass Pro needed to serve a different reality: small fleets, where owners, managers, and drivers often share responsibility — and sometimes the same person switches roles depending on the day.

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That created a few hard problems:

• Multiple levels of access and dynamic content depending on role

• Making key information obvious for fleet managers (alerts, security, health)

• Keeping driver tasks quick and low-effort (maintenance, security checks, damage reporting)

• Protecting privacy while still supporting operational oversight

• Launching alongside the 2019 Ford Transit, with tight timelines and limited research funding

 

How We Worked

 

I used a Double Diamond approach to keep the team aligned and decisions grounded in evidence.

 

Discovery → Define

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• Competitive research across OEM apps and remote-control utilities (e.g., Nest, Tado) to understand expectations for monitoring and control

• Early user research with small business owners, managers, and drivers to understand priorities (security and productivity consistently rose to the top)

• Persona development and refinement to keep the team aligned on real behaviours and constraints

 

Develop

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• Design studios and “How Might We” workshops to generate and stress-test solutions quickly

• User flows and app maps to ensure the experience scaled cleanly as features grew

• Rapid prototyping (Sketch / InVision at the time), with guerrilla usability testing when budget was limited — supplemented by formal testing where possible

 

Deliver

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• Component-based, modular screen design for consistent implementation and easier iteration

• Clear developer support: screen flows, dependencies, and handoff artefacts so the team could build confidently

• Ongoing QA using test devices to ensure build quality matched design intent