AA Car Genie - Native Apps
Working with: Matchbox Mobile, Intelematics, & The AA
Key contributions: Information Architecture, pitching concepts, wireframes, illustrations & visuals, hand-over, snagging and refinement
Introduction
Matchbox were approached by the AA to help design and build native iOS & Android apps and web portal to work alongside their OBD-II dongle which provides information on vehicle health, driving style, and location. The project was already well underway when I joined, but there were still plenty of new features to get involved with. From the best way to encourage users to improve their driving styles, to how to make the most of car location data.
Challenge
The AAs’ main goal was to reduce breakdowns. This was to be achieved by enabling users to fix problems before they caused a breakdown, and by preventing breakdown completely through encouraging users to improve their driving style.
Approach
Understanding the data that’s available: Working closely with the AA & Intelematics to understand what information the API could provide and how the data would be packed.
Creating a strategy: Once the team had a clear understanding of the API series, a guided workshop was planned. Within this workshop the team at The AA were encouraged to share their vision before being guided through a series of tasks to help us understand the user & business needs. Before working together to ideate, refine and select a feature set.
Prioritizing features: In order to ensure each release provided users with value, while also being achievable within the given time frame. The creative and technical teams worked together to give each feature a value, size, and priority before planning them into sprints.
UX/UI: Each sprint started off with wire-framing. The first step was to work out where the feature should sit within the current app structure, taking into account the urgency of the feature and how often the user is likely to access it. Once wireframes had been signed off, visuals were created within Sketch, using the AA’s guidelines to ensure brand compliance.
Outcomes
This case study will focus on the areas that I had the strongest involvement with-- the driver score. One of the biggest benefits of Car Genie is its ability to analyse driving style, the user's speed, braking style, idling, and acceleration are assessed to create a driver score. The biggest challenge with this feature was ensuring that users understood the score-- what it meant, whether it was a good score, and how they could improve on it.
What is the driver score? : Upon opening the tab, users are presented with an overview that includes the overall driver score alongside the individual scores. Giving them a basic understanding without overwhelming them with data and descriptions. Should a user want to dive deeper, an information icon opens up a more comprehensive description.
What is a good driver score? : Each score is presented within a ring, with a full ring indicating the maximum score of 100 and an empty ring indicating the lowest score of 0. Each ring is then colour coded, with red being a bad score, orange being a score that requires some improvement, and green being a good score.
How can I improve my score? : The colour coded individual scores help users understand the areas they need to improve in at a glance. This is then supported by an ‘Improve your score’ button that opens up bespoke tips that’ll help the user improve their score and improve on their fuel consumption.
Once users understood the score, we needed to encourage them to work towards improving it. And what better way than gamification-- users are positioned within a leaderboard, letting them know how their driving style ranks against other users.
Results
AA Car Genie won the Connect Car Product of the Year award at the 2018 IoT Breakthrough Awards
“It’s a fantastic achievement to have won the IoT ‘Connected Car Product of the Year’ award, beating stiff competition and is a great testament to the design and development of our technology. ”
