How I'd start
The operator doesn't go away. They become a supervisor of four or five cells, a job nobody trained them for. So:
- Sit next to a live cell first, with operators and field engineers. Not formal research. Watching and asking.
- Design the stuck moment first. That's where trust is won or lost.
- One language for every job. Same states, colors, sounds and layout on every cell in the fleet.
- Build the prototypes myself, so we test behavior, not pictures.
What you can count on
Three places in 15 years: my own studio ([X] years), [agency] ([X] years), Rellify since [year].
At Rellify I'm the first and only designer: workspace, agent system, onboarding, brand. A three-week experiment we built last year became the company's main product.
AI agents are a softer version of your problem. A system acts on its own, and a person has to understand and trust it. Same shape, lower stakes.
Remote for 8 years, your time zone, and I'd come to Ljubljana regularly.
What I haven't done
- Factories or manufacturing.
- Physical signals: lights, sound, an e-stop.
- Formal research. I validate with users, mostly informally.
Domain gaps, not craft gaps. I've learned every client's business from zero. A factory can only be learned on the floor, and I'd rather learn it with you than pretend.
Vova [email] vova9.com