Built in the Office, Used in the Field
An office worker designs a vehicle checklist. To complete it as written, a worker has to walk around the vehicle four times. In reality? They walk around once and tick, tick, tick.
The Problem
Walk around the vehicle four times.
An office worker designs a vehicle inspection checklist. Their priority: fit it on one A4 page, easy to print, looks logical on paper. Question 3: Check tyres. Question 7: Check panel damage. Question 12: Check under-carriage. Question 18: Check lights. To complete this checklist as written, a worker has to walk around the vehicle four times. In reality? They walk around once, try to remember everything, then tick, tick, tick.
The Disconnect
Office optimises for paper. Field optimises for getting the job done.
The office sees a simple form — just 20 questions, takes five minutes. The field sees a checklist that forces them to either waste time walking in circles or rely on memory and guess. Office workers optimise for what looks good on paper. Field workers optimise for getting the job done so they can actually operate the vehicle. Those are fundamentally different goals.
The Solution
Design for the work, not the paper.
Design checklists in the order work actually happens. Walk around the vehicle once: tyres, panels, lights, door seals — everything visible from the outside. Then under the vehicle: undercarriage, fluid leaks. Then inside: controls, safety equipment. The checklist follows the physical flow of the inspection, not what fits neatly on a printed page.
The Insight
Digital forms don't need to fit on A4.
When you design for paper, you get paperwork. When you design for the work, you get real inspections. The workers aren't lazy — they're efficient. If your checklist fights their workflow, you're not getting quality data. You're getting tick-and-flick compliance theatre. Wakata lets you build checklists that match how work actually happens.