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
Uber Aid
Help's now just a tap away, wherever you are
My Role
I co-designed with Jigar Borsania to research and design for the identified problem faced by people for immediate emergency, SOS, Help situations!
Skills
A lot of field research, Data Analysis, User Flow, Ideation, Prototyping, Concept Validation, Solution, Usability Testing, Critique understanding
Brief
Driver centric design experience design solution for Uber Aid
Duration, Location
2 months - 2018
Why Uber Aid?
Uber has been working to add more safety features to its app. However, designing a feature on the NGI (Next gen IVI) keeping in mind the safety feature will work to strengthen their safety practices. This project will help us understand the driver and place of ethnographic research within the design development process. Introducing Uber Aid Feature in cars for Human centered Design which will inspire thinking potential to use of ethnography in business and service design.
“Helping keep people safe is a huge responsibility, and cannot be compromised. How will we increase driver's motivation in pitching up for this cause, and how will we introduce features in cars for human centered design?"
Our Challenges
Quick peek - solution
Background
Uber Canada has confirmed that the 911 Assistance feature will start rolling out to all Android and iOS users in Canada. The new feature will take the form of a ‘Safety Toolkit’ button. The button will be on the screen whenever users are riding in an Uber vehicle.Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) come in many shapes and forms but this design will be helping me share a common goalwith the company : to help the drivers who volunteer for this cause, to provide them with the most efficient guidance for helping patientsand rewarding them with the best intensives which they deserve.
Over 1,37,000 people were killed in road accidents in 2013 alone, that is more than the number of people killed in all our wars put together. In a 2013 survey, the foundation found that 74% of Indians were unlikely to help an accident victim, whether alone or with other bystanders. Apart from the fear of being falsely blamed, people also worried about becoming trapped as witness in a court case legal proceedings. If they helped the victim get to hospital, they feared coming under pressure to stump up fees for medical treatment.
In a country with smoothly functioning emergency services, bystanders often need to do little more than call an ambulance, But in India ambulances are in short supply, sometimes very slow to arrive and often poorly equipped. This makes it a country in need of a solution.
Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are an emergency service who treat illnesses and injuries that require an urgent medical response. It's not clear how many cities meet WHO recommendation of one ambulance per one lakh people??
Why IVI/NGI for Uber Aid Assistance?
Why not Phone/ App for the safetyFeatures?
This era of automobile brings to us with some of the incredible concepts designed to enhance the experience of the users. With electrification, self-driving systems, and other technologies now becoming more of a reality, it’s an exciting time to look forward
at what we have already got on the public roads.
As users receive more and more information from the outside world, the vehicle as a well equipped and high technology carrier must integrate this information explosion efficiently. Human Machine Interface (HMI) is not only a communication bridge between the driver and the car itself, but is also a principle connector between the driver and the outside world.
Research Methods
We utilised different research methods in the process to create a complete picture of the identified opportunity. We strived to create experiences keeping in mind the user centric design methods, irrespective of the fluctuating nature of this project, and decided on the most suitable methods at based on the users, geography and resources, and time.
Contextual Inquiry
Observing behaviour, what are the challenges, why do
we need this?
Analysis & Ideation
What are the ways we can improve the problem? Insights & design solution
Market Research
Talking to users, whats their say? Questionnaire, who is our market segment?
Usability Testing
How can we improve further?
Testing overall results & findings on field
Our high level goals were to
​
-
To understand the driver and place of ethnographic research within the design development process.
-
To introduce Uber Aid Feature in cars for Human-Centered Design.
-
To inspire thinking about the potential use of ethnography in business and service design.
Picking up the pieces
Driving is one of the complicated human activities. Observing drivers behaviours are affected by a wide variety of impact factors both from the surrounding environment (e.g. weather, road conditions, traffic); and from drivers themselves (e.g. age, character, and driving habits). In order to improve the driving safety, and the passengers safety for uber aid feature, it’s important
for us to analyse the drivers point of view.
Insights from the field
To keep it real and understand how things work in the field, we interviewed, observed 30 drivers, and documented our learnings from the users and surroundings which impact the users in day to day lives. Some of the questions we noted were the patterns of daily life, of the drivers life, addressing questions like - in India, how many of us know the emergency number to call an ambulance or a help aid for help? Do you know a number to the nearest place for seeking help aid in a different city or a place you have never visited? What would you do?
Below are some raw data & insights documented from the field research & users.
" Hey dint really want to load you with the huge amount of data - questionnaire/ interview questions, responses
on this page, do feel free to reach out to know more!! That's a story in itself !"
Deeper Insights
Before we could jump into designing, it was important to define the outcome or the final expectations and understand the perspective of the users. Prior to the redesign, we partnered with ambulance drivers at Hadapsar Pune, India to understand their work.
We believe that this era of automobile brings to us with some of the incredible concepts designed to enhance the experience of the users. With electrification, self-driving systems, and other tech becoming more of a reality, it’s an exciting time to look forward at what we’ve already got on the public roads. In today’s scenario, drivers limit themselves in using most functions on phone when they are driving. Taking care of the entire emergency aid system helps the drivers to reducing distraction and focusing on the road in front.
User personna to capture strengths, weakness, goals, behaviours and challenges
We empathised our findings into user profile to derive the core goals and challenges and inform stakeholders. While we actually started out with personas (car drivers mainly UBER drivers ), to align with our vision of an integrated experience. Here we segregated data and analysed the findings. The users were ranging from Low Economy background drivers to Driving enthusiasts. Most of these users were used to the interface of the car Infotainment System and hence found the general interaction familiar and easy to use.
Analysis & Action Details
On top of dedicated feedback for research findings and analysis, we defined the design principles to guide the ideation and design decisions.
21/30 participants like proactive guidance in such emergency situations. and show positive response about the new feature of Uber AID
Quick - Action design
The passengers, limit themselves in using most functions on phone when they are panicking or scared.
One touch SOS
Taking care of the entire emergency aid system helps the drivers to reducing distraction and focusing on
the road in front.
Easy & Safe
Redefining the Scope
Most of these users were used to the interface of the car Infotainment System and hence found the general interaction familiar and easy to use. the relationships between in-car entertainment system and personal mobile information terminals are increasingly close, phones are one of the important roles in humans’ daily lives. The close integration with phones will expand drivers’ human-machine experiences.
Card Sorting
Card sorting helped our design by firstly understanding how much the drivers were aware of the terms and functionalities in the car, and the information architecture of a IVI. In a card sorting session, participants organised topics into categories that make sense to them and labeled these into groups. We understood the patters and responses of features preferred while driving and preference functions while they are driving in normal day scenarios.
Evolving into the solution
Our design evolved with constant feedback from users and stakeholders. The wireframe structure is the most critical part of the interface design which influences how the users interact with the system. In this project we used the low fidelity prototype to stimulate the flow.
By drawing the interface on paper, we tested the efficiency of layouts, information structure and interactions.
Real Testing, Real Feedback
User Test, Think Aloud - Driver Design Evolution
71% of test participants prefer to use physical control panel (IVI) on the bottom of the console. Based on Heuristic Evaluation we modified the designs, IA of the Interface. The workflow of the Interface is simplified after the users feedbacks & behaviours.
The users (11 in count ) were made to do certain tasks while simultaneously giving a feedback regarding the how the task undertaken went and summarise their experience in the end the given tasks:
1. Navigate while Booking hospitals
2. Check for nearest Help
3. Book emergency Rooms nearby
4. Gather Patient Info and Transfer to hospital
5. Reach Destination & First AID
Highlights on the observations & notes
“ Iska Additional Paisa milega kya” ? – Will we get paid for this?
The users were happy to help their own people in times of need. And were ready to get used to the poll generation process.
Ignored the instruction about the location preference
Needs a suggestion that more then one Place for hospital could be selected for taking the patients.
Were active in Decision making and dint want the IC to do everything for the driver.
The IVI helps the user to get into the situation more because of the interaction during such a situation.
Keep it more voice based, as we need very limited and visible controls while driving
System Usability Scale & Mapping
The System Usability Scale (SUS) provides a “quick and dirty”, reliable tool for measuring the usability. One of the biggest challenges of HMI are real driving environment stimulations. We tried our best to imitate the real car driving situations. and also drivers actual response while using HMI
Benefits of using SUS include:
- Is valid, it can effectively differentiate between usable and unusable systems.
- Is a very easy scale to administer to participants
- Can be used on small sample sizes with reliable results.
The IVI test gets a score of average SUS : 63.77 and can be concluded that the additional feature of Uber AID is good in terms of usability.
Building on the Feedback
Final Design - Functionality Approach
When car is stationary, drivers have full access for the whole system.
Driving Mode
Drivers are limited to using most functions (navigation, settings, and AID) when they are driving. It helps drivers to reducing distraction and focusing on the road in front. Navigation function will transfer to Infotainment system by default, also multiple
devices are possible if required.
Interface Details
To Prioritise information and reduce driver distractions, the interface in driving mode uses bigger images and fonts. Also the layout of the interface has been simplified to maximum extent so as to help drivers to receive information as quickly as possible.
Impact & Takeaways
The design received a lot of positive feedback from customers and stakeholders, especially when we went out on field to test it out with the actual customers out there, and here are some responses from the drivers out there -
1) For users more comfortable with conventional controls, the traditional panel and the IVI touch panel provides ease of use - especially for one touch navigation. It is the best choice for key functions such as call pickup, disconnect etc in case of emergency situations.
2) Console area must have physical controls to handle such situations & they have to be predefined for quick use & reflexes.
3) Saves Lives, Creates Opportunities for the drivers.
" Usability and simplicity is good - no need for education to start using it."
" Recommendations aligning with my needs which are coming on my mind"
" My biggest takeaway from this project was how to define scope and manage hypothetical brief with different data points from research, understanding the needs of the users to stakeholder input. Starting out with a white canvas, we went out on trying to collect data for stakeholders and get resources with a pre-defined vision. Dealing with so many limitations and pain points at the beginning to reaching out to a goal, we have come a longway!!! We learned later on that listening to what stakeholders want helped to set expectations early on and avoid us doing duplicated efforts. I know the UI can be better - will keep updating as i keep learning!!! :D "