UX Case Study
Rental
Application 2023
The Ergonomics and Hygiene 2023 Conference andExhibition Website.
Project Overview
Introduction
Auto Companion is a car rental application 2023
Our original concept was focused on designing the interfaces required for an application based in-vehicle experience, this includes; a reservation system, interface customization, and in-vehicle use of our application. We want to design a dynamically adapting interface for vehicle renters to safely interact with a vehicle's speed, navigation, entertainment, temperature, and other in-vehicle systems.
Due to the scope of our concept this step in the process took much longer than originally anticipated, as we had to think through the application, its physical connectivity with a vehicle, and the products positioning in the larger transportation marketplace.
Target System Configuration
Users need to utilize their smartphone, download the application, and physically connect to the car-sharing vehicle.
Devices:
iPhones and Android Phones,
running iOS and AndroidOS,
respectively.
Connector:
Lightning Adapter or USB Type-C
Uses Goal
Quickly signup and get
approval to rent
a vehicle.
Safely utilize the application
while it is connected with
a rental car.
Personalize saved addresses,
syncing entertainment, and
in-car layout.
Business Goal
Provide customers rental car service that is a safe, secure convenient, reliable, and cost-effective
alternative to owning a car.
Usability Objectives
Goal: Provide customers rental car service that is a safe, secure, convenient, reliable, and cost-effective alternative to owning a car.
Metrics
- Efficiency: Average account creation should be completed without errors at least 80% of the time, and should be equal to or better than the current application.
- Effectiveness: Hypothetically, average user customization completion time of less than 2 minutes as a baseline. (currently no competition to compare with)
- Satisfaction: Average user satisfaction on a 1-7 scale (1 bad, 7 good) should be 5 or higher, or at least 0.5 better than the previous personnel system. Satisfaction will be measured as an average of user ratings on 3 scales: “efficient”, “easy to use”, and “professional”.
- Success Rate: 50% of users successfully complete their first rental with no issues. Measured as four levels of success; successfully complete, successfully complete with one minor issue, successfully complete with a major issue, and failure to complete their first trip.
Benchmark Tasks
The following primary tasks will be used for the benchmark
purposes, will focus on:
- Creating an account (Efficiency)
- Customizing the application driving UX (Effective)
- Making a reservation (Satisfaction)
- Completion of first rental (Success Rate)
Benchmark Tasks
- # of application downloads
- Customer satisfaction rate
- Distracted driving accidents compared with competitors
- Usability testing
- Compliance with government regulations and standards
- Examples in United States:
- Federal Department of Transportation
- State(s) Department of Transportation
Design Constraint
The AutoCompainon is a mobile application concept compatible with rental car fleets. Vehicles in those fleets would need to be retrofitted to provide the mobile application with access to the in-car infotainment system or purpose-built with this functionality. Currently, this user interface concept does not exist in production vehicles. However, Canoo Inc, an automotive startup focused on the development and manufacturing of electric vehicles, is developing a vehicle with a similar interface and subscription-focused business model.
Since this unique functionality and feature set is only a concept in early development stages, it is not possible for us to collect relevant real-world user testing data, interpret this feedback, and refine the user interface of the AutoCompanion application. However, we have identified the core design constraint of our application, the screen size. Considering the root concept of our application is to eliminate distracted driving, the information shown on a smartphone must be essential for the user during the rental and operation of the vehicle. Therefore, we consider readability at a glance to be of the utmost importance for the user and have created the attached design sketches with this understanding.
Route Concept & USP
Eliminate the potential of a distracted driving related accident through integrating the user’s smartphone with our application to create a holistic rental system (on-demand, reservation, vehicle key, navigation, entertainment, as well as in-vehicle controls.
Success Criteria and Usability Objective Metrics:
Increase Customer
Satisfaction
Reduce distracted
driving accidents
Limit car theftf
Increase user
base and revenue
40% increase in customer satisfaction within the first year through surveys and service improvements.
Reduce distracted driving accidents by 20% in the first year through our unique interaction model and strict smartphone usage policies.
Decrease vehicle theft by 30% in the first year by implementing a smartphone access system.
Reach 10,000 car-sharing users within 12 months.
Ideation Process
Our Target Audiences are:
People who are 18+, hold a valid driver's license, and do not currently own, lease, or have access to a vehicle. While this audience encompasses a wide-range of demographics. They’re primarily categorized under:
1
Share-Rider
2
Public-Transit
3
Traveler
Accessibility Requirements:
We are focusing solely on the accessibility requirements of our application concept and are not including the accessibility requirements of the rental cars.
People who wear glasses, people with a cognitive disability, and people with a physical disability.
Accommodate people who are legally able to drive:
User Personas
User Journey Map
Task Analysis
Task Inventory
We determined that it was most important to show the task flow of Quick Ride (on-demand rental), Reserve Ahead (advanced reservation rental), Find/Start Vehicle, & Voice-Recognition (specifically, changing an address).
While there are many more tasks possible, such as personalization, voice-recognition setup, adjusting the in-car interface layout or initial account creation, we have chosen to showcase the primary tasks which we deem most essential.
Task Optimization
Semi-Structured Monitoring System
Auto Companion offers a spectrum of user experiences, ranging from Novice to Advanced. Due to the need for users to optimize the app for
a touchless use case, it is more complex than other similar apps. Over time, users will adjust personalization settings and the app will use machine learning to identify user trends.
The app will offer appropriate feedback or features aligned with user needs, based on personal usage data and driving models trained through machine learning. This will enhance the driving experience and reduce the user's memory load over time.
Site Map
Architecture Information
Screen Sketch
Critical Thinking and Future Opportunities
Audience
After many discussions that allowed us to further understand the scope of our chosen concept, we realized that it is too large for this project. Our core concept is to minimize driver distractions by simplifying the driver control system of conventional vehicles.There are several elements of this project that we have significantly considered and wish to incorporate, but are unfortunately not part of the goals or requirements of this project. In this section we describe how a more holistic user experience might exist. We believe this is helpful to better understand how we are thinking about and intend to execute our concept, AutoCompanion.
Our concept is more than designing a mobile application, designing just a mobile application does not allow us to sufficiently provide the users with a safer and more enhanced driving experience. We believe that by incorporating physical buttons on the steering wheel as well as several in the center console area, we can achieve this aspirational goal. These buttons would be utilized to interact with the user and vehicle information displayed on their smartphone.
Therefore, in order to design a comprehensive mobile application experience, our future work might extend slightly past the requirements of this project. This might include, but is not limited to, designing user-centric interactions into a smart steering system as well as climate and seat controls. Additionally, while ensuring a simplified driver control system, the passenger’s user experience would also be considered.
Taskflow
Due to the scope of our application concept we have noted several UI/UX considerations which we believe are necessary to pursue in future work on
this project.
Firstly, we did not include the specific voice-recognition set-up task flow. While we think it is important that it is included, it is not core to our interface and the exact process needs to be further researched before implementing the exact task flow required. It is more important for us to highlight the tasks in which a user will interact with voice-recognition software, than it is important to specify the exact task flow required to make this system work. Verbal interaction of a user with AutoCompanion is essential as it reduces distracted driving, allows the application to understand a user's habits, and allows a user to become more familiar with the system. We will include this set-up process into our task flow in the future.
Additionally, we intend on including facial recognition interaction to unlock the car door for users to rent and access a vehicle. This would simplify the process for the user to rent and access the car and be similar when compared with how a smartphone user might unlock their phone.
