Part A · The one-hour answer
Relay
Making the next right action obvious — for the people doing the work, and the people leading it.
Foundey Senior Product Designer challenge · September 2026
The one hour answer
People don’t need a longer list. They need to know what to do first, and why — and managers need to see where to step in, never a stopwatch on a person.
Slides 1–10
Part A · The one-hour answer
Two complaints, one screen
The brief: redesign the dashboard. People should see which work comes first, from most critical to least urgent.
“I never know what needs my attention first.”
Workers
“I cannot see what each worker is doing.”
Managers
Part A · The one-hour answer
It already ranks, and that’s not the fix
The current screen already has a queue titled “Needs Your Attention, ranked by urgency.” People still complain, so ranking was never the missing piece.
What was missing
Why
It ranks, but never says why.
Consequence
It groups by source, not by what happens next.
One first thing
Every row asks for attention at once.
A finish line
There is no way to be done.
A manager view
There is no manager surface at all.
Part A · The one-hour answer
Five failures, five fixes
The screen today
Relay
Ranks, but never says why
A cause line on every row, and a “Why is this first?” explainer that shows the score.
Labels by source, not consequence
Three groups named by time: Act now, Up next, When you can.
Every row carries equal weight
Rows are quiet. One hero carries the one visible action, and loudness follows rank.
No finish line
A done count, an undo toast, and a calm all-clear screen.
No manager surface at all
A Team screen: Needs you first, then a quiet table of people.
Part A · The one-hour answer
Assumptions
Three things we took as given, so the hour went into the screen and not into the setup.
01 · Distance
Two meters, one desk
Read from about two meters, on a shared screen. Three things must work at that distance: the hero title, the countdown, and which group a row is in.
02 · People
Two personas
A coordinator doing the work and a manager watching the floor cover the ask. Both open the same app.
03 · The rule
The rule is already right
The priority formula and the seed data are tested and easy to explain. The job is execution, not a new model.
Part A · The one-hour answer
What we prioritized
Craft before features: a quiet shell where the one thing that matters is the loudest thing.
01 · Restraint
Hue only means something
Near-monochrome. Color shows priority and success, so the ranking still reads with the color taken out. Eye candy is two moments and one texture.
02 · Modes
Light, dark and wire
Three real token sets. Wire is not a filter. It is the low-fidelity deliverable, and it switches on in the live product.
03 · One source
The app is the source
The app, its design system and this deck share components. Nothing here is redrawn by hand.
Part A · The one-hour answer
The wireframe
The brief asked for low fidelity. This is the real product with the color removed, not boxes labeled “Nav”.
- Same hero with the color removed. Size and position alone say this is the one thing.
- Rank survives as shape and fill: a disc, a triangle, a ring. Only Act now is tinted.
- Manager view: Needs you first, each row with one specific action, then a quiet roster.
Part A · The one-hour answer
The priority rule, in one screen
Time plus orders blocked plus impact. One score, one sort, the same rule for every item.
40
Time
Up to 40 points, most when late
30
Orders blocked
Up to 30 points, at 200 or more
87
Impact
Up to 87 points, safety alone is 50
A score of 60 or more is Act now, and 30 or more is Up next. Safety is always Act now.
Part A · The one-hour answer
What we cut
Real ideas, left out of the hour on purpose. This deck went from 27 slides to 16 for the same reason.
01 · Backend
A real backend
State is seeded and lives in the browser. Sync, sign-in and notifications are the next project, not the next hour.
02 · People
A third persona
Coordinator and manager cover the brief. A shift lead or a driver view is real work, and separate.
03 · Handoff
The shift-end handoff
A 16:30 list of what is still open, passed to the next shift in one action. Left as an idea, not built.
Beyond the hour
Everything from here on is optional. The one hour answer is complete without it.
Slides 11–16 · Optional
Part B · Beyond the hour · Optional
The hi-fi product
Same screen, same rule, finished. Type, geometry and motion now do the work that color usually does.
- One object owns the page: the hero says what to do now, why, and how long.
- Act now is the only tinted group. Up next and When you can are quieter, by rank.
- The rail is reference: a truck clock and the shift. Nothing in it is clickable.
Part B · Beyond the hour · Optional
Motion
Eighteen named moments, one rule: show where something went. Nothing loops except the all-clear aurora, and nothing pulses.
Each moment also has a version for people who turn motion off. Replay them all at /system/motion.
≈700
Milliseconds, Mark done, end to end
The check draws.
The hero leaves.
The next row lifts out of the list and becomes the hero.
The gap closes.
The counter rolls.
The toast arrives.
Part B · Beyond the hour · Optional
The manager view, and the line it doesn’t cross
A per-person stopwatch reads as surveillance, not help. The board never times a person, only an item.
- Needs you comes first. Each row has one action with a specific verb.
- The roster has no action buttons, only one quiet menu per row. A row opens the person’s sheet.
- No clock next to a name. Time appears on an item, and only when it signals a problem.
Part B · Beyond the hour · Optional
Accessibility
Three gates that fail the build, not a checklist read once at the end.
G4
Contrast and axe
Zero violations, in every mode
Every route is scanned with axe in light, dark and wire. Text contrast is measured from real styles, not by eye.
G5
The wire test
Rank survives with no hue
With color removed, the four groups still differ by shape, fill and position. No CSS filter is used anywhere.
G6
Reduced motion
Every animation has a variant
The color cue stays and the movement goes. Only the all-clear aurora loops, and under reduced motion it holds still.
Part B · Beyond the hour · Optional
Next steps
The screens are built. What is left is proving they work on a real floor.
01 · Pilot
Run one shift
Time the first action on the floor. That is the number the three-second test stands in for.
02 · Handoff
Build the shift-end handoff
The 16:30 list: what is still open, passed to the next shift in one action.
03 · Real data
Connect the real queue
Swap the seed for live data, sign-in, and the notifications that go with them.