Charge Into the Future of Driving
Enhancing and Redefining the overall User Experience of
Electric Vehicles for the Indian Market.
Graduation Project '19
Charge Into the Future of Driving
Charge Into the Future of Driving
Enhancing and Redefining the overall User Experience of
Electric Vehicles for the Indian Market.
My Role
Got an opportunity to work on multiple live projects, including UX research, UX design, UI design, automotive HMI and with development team for market products. I designed & prepared to launch
new features for EV's during my graduation project.
Skills
Primary Research, Secondary Research, Data Analysis, Scope Definition, User Mapping, Ideation, Brainstorming, Concept Validation, Solution, Usability Testing
Brief
This was probably one of the most challenging and interesting
projects i went through during my internship with the help of
my automotive HMI team and fellow partners at Tata Elxsi, Pune.
Duration, Location
Dec 2018 – Apr 2019 (18 Weeks) - Tata Elxsi Ltd, Pune
About My Project
This project aims at targeting the automotive market of EVs In India, considering the scope of improvement and intervention in HMI, keeping in mind the Indian demographic constraints. The objective is to find scope and study user behaviour in Indian EVs HMI features when compared to the normal vehicle HMI, (for eg : charging, range anxiety, battery status etc.)
This project is currently subject to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). I will not be able to upload the work here directly, Contact me to learn more!
Discover
Desk Research, Field Research, Benchmarking. Insights and EV Feature Mapping.
Ideation
Story Boarding, User Scenarios,
Task flows, IA, UML, Wireframes
Prototype
Define
Analysis, Affinity Mapping, Pain Point and Opportunity Mapping, Empathy Mapping, SWOT, User Persona, Design Direction.
Deliver
Design Systems, Visual Design,
Final Prototype, Usability Testing.
Project Roadmap
Learnings from my final year design undergrad’s internship experience :
Team Bonding
If i was asked to name Tata Elxsi's strongest asset, even with two amazing internship experience's, i would say that it is their people; comprising of some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. My learning was not just limited to one team, but multidimensional domains & teams in studio.
I began my thesis by understanding automotive HMI team's ways of working, by learning ongoing projects, upcoming projects & majorly past project's learnings & success stories. This however helped me build the relationship and mutual understanding for the coming months.
Secondary & Primary Research
Interacting with the users, was the most important and crucial part of my journey, which helped create a foundation in understanding what users think, and have to say about the product. By doing this, i was able to gather many informative insights. I started off by doing some desk study, literature review about the product ; which helped me benchmark the current and future technology & market trends followed by understanding the competitors. On field : User interviews in multiple ways helped me understand the needs, SWOT analysis & affinity mapping was the core part of my research journey where i gathered most of my insights & design direction.
Link 01 : Questionnaire
Link 02 : Planning Questionnaire
Reach out to know more about research
Analysis, Design & Prototype
I had designed and worked with my industry mentor to finalise the basic design process early during the internship considering the timespan of the project. At this phase, a lot of iteration & back and forth happened, spanned across the entire project. In the analysis phase, i had involved and discussed my ideas with product designers, UX researchers, Developers, multiple teams in the studio to understand limitations & perspectives. prototyping and design finalisation was done keeping in mind all the limitations & key takeaways from the Indian users in mind.
Iteration & Feedback
Feedback & Usability has been an iterative process where i kept understanding the design expectations from the users. Enthusiastic feedbacks from the users kept the design alive and helped us identify usability issues, prioritize features and functions, most importantly build empathy for the target audience because I believe, that until you do justice with your designs when you keep interacting and updating the designs with feedback of the users and target audience.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential work in here. Here's a video of the concept exploration flow for New Range Rover Velar which is on my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of the company.
Internship takeaways
1. Keep learning, from everyone & anyone.
2. Collaborate with the best people, Feedback & team work matters.
I've learnt, the journey to achieving exponential growth begins with effective communicating & keen observation. There can be various means of communication from books, reading articles, videos, talking productive to people, and most importantly questioning everything that pauses a thought in your head. Talking to people around you will leave you with immense knowledge. In today's tech savvy generation - explore the web to look for inspirations. An attitude to keep gaining and understand people around you will help us deliver empathy and become full rounded UX designers.
I learned how to make my thought process and work visible as a designer to the larger team. I believe its always a good practice to keep asking for feedbacks from as many people as possible to hear on to different and more comprehensive perspectives.
At Tata Elxsi, we kept having all team discussions/ presentations every alternate week where the whole design team would provide feedback on our progress.
From my childhood my father has always taught me the essence and importance of physical & cognitive ergonomics posture while working, continuous breaks are necessary while working. While working on multiple projects, Tata Elxsi has always encouraged my personal space and time. I believe pursuing hobbies other than work and breaking some time off for family, gets the best out of you in many ways.
keep taking regular breaks! your mind and body deserves it :)
3. In addition to the team's goals/career goals, value your personal goals.
