Overview/Summary

• Users are Charged Up! over the ability to learn and make informed decisions about the purchase of electric automobiles.  Sales of electric vehicles are climbing at a steadily increasing rate each year as more and more people join the electric vehicle revolution.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis was deemed important to help provide a clear view of strengths, allowing me to build on them and meet objectives at the same time. Areas of weakness and possible opportunities were also found. These could be exploited and expanded upon to create a superior, user friendly electric vehicle companion application.

User Story/User Flow

There is a Native American proverb that says “It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story”and that’s exactly how I set out to write a user story. I took the voices of many users, uncovered their core need and turned it into a story. This represents the core needs of the user, what they do with the product and why they do it.

The user flow below represents the paths or tasks the user may undertake while using the product.

Digital Lo-Fi Wireframes

Here is what the initial lo-fi wireframe looks like.

Lo-Fi Clickable Prototype

Home Page Multiple Paths

A home page update based on the first few rounds of user testing. Users indicated they would like a bigger button in the middle and thought a darker border would help things stand out.

Usability Testing Hi-Fi

I created a fully-functional, hi-fidelity prototype of the new flows in Figma which I tested by utilizing Maze. At the same time, I started recruiting subjects for the test who fit the necessary criteria. I conducted 4 usability tests in the first round and 2 more after iterating on the few issues that were identified. Below are those examples.

Issue 1:

Users clicking on the warranty option instead of the charging option when comparing charging information for electric vehicles versus combustion vehicles.

Solution 1:

I removed the warranty section and kept that strictly in the electric vehicle car picker section. The result was a 100% success rate upon 2nd testing for this task.

Usability Testing

Issue 2:

The main menu was deemed to be misplaced and redundant.

Solution 2:

I changed the location of the menu and made each menu icon to reflect each main page of the design.

Learnings

I learned that the more you interview, the more refined your approach continues to be. I was also able to come away with a greater knowledge of what Maze can do in terms of product testing. I intend to work more on this in the future. It is pretty robust in terms of offerings.

Challenges

An additional challenge moving forward will be to place this onto the mobile platform. Coding is a challenge for me thus far but I fully intend to rise to this challenge. I want to learn Java and CSS to start with, which will greatly aid me in my design offerings. In fact, I just started some course work in these.

Failures

I initially attempted some 3-D logo work as well, but failed at it initially. I also sought to do live account tracking but did not see how it could tie in for now.

Successes

I formed a few more professional relationships through this project. This was a joy to develop and I learned a great deal about electric vehicles. I also want to thank my developer for helping me out with some of the heavier, coding elements. We ended up with a superb , intuitive product that meets the needs of the user.