Case Study
Infotainment
Overview
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This is an extensive personal project that is the result of 10+ years of interest in in-vehicle interfaces and radios.
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it is a mixture of research findings, (both original and used), wireframes, prototypes, user flows, and overall a case study about infotainment along with commentary on my won vision of the future of cars
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When I was younger I wanted to create the "iPhone o head units" because I felt they were awful. The more research I did, the more issues I found both in design, but also limitations due to the timeline of how long it takes to go from design to building to market. The landscape has changed so much that the way I was thinking about it in the earlier days is pretty different. People want to use their phones, but cars are betting that it's safer to put all controls into the car's interface, and want you to put your phone away tucked in a little drawer with a wireless charging pad. But I was betting that while people liked that their car's interface basically mirrors their phone (especially with car play and android auto) - they still like to use their phone as a remote, and an interface into controlling things since they are already so used to using their phone to control music, glance at texts, pan around on a map - this familiarity should be worked with and supplemented, not blocked and replaced. The user's phone and the car's interfacing should work together freely as possible.
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For a while, I didn't find that much on the UX of cars and infotainment. I reached out to tons of people through LinkedIn that I found with a search of keywords like "infotainment ux designer" and a thousand variations of that. Many said that UX is/was late to infotainment and in-vehicle experience is something that is catching fire now. Now when I do research I've found more people, students, articles, talked about how bad the UX of cars is. Companies like tesla are no doubt creating a cool experience with a gigantic screen in your car. It's flashy. But is it gimicky? I'm not sure. Is it more distracting than other smaller interfaces? I'm not sure owners and others willing to look past it maybe being overkill or distracting because it's just cool? What percentage of owners are really interested in sitting in their car and gaming?
What I did
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Conducted user research
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Competitive analysis
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Usability testing
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Created wireframes and prototypes from low-fidelity to high-fidelity
First Steps
Competitive Analysis
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To begin, I checked out a handful of apps in this space including Duolingo, Quizlet.
User Interviews - interview questions and participant notes
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User Persona
User flows
Then I created some user flows to think through tasks such as creating cards, and using group mode
Initial sketches and ideas
Then I did some sketches to generate and think out ideas related to:
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What should be on the home screen
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How to go about groups and sessions
Paper prototype and testing
I quickly put together a paper prototype to some early feedback
Usability Test Plan / Results and lessons learned
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First digital wireframes
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I then talked to people that were current students, as well as students who had finished school within the last 1-2 years. My thinking with this was that recent students may provide feedback that was reflective on their time spent as a student, which may inspire different attitudes than current students
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Main takeaways included:
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People want simple and easy
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A "fun" or "cute" interface, but not something overly animated or cute. They found this to be necessary, distracting at times, and gimmicky
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Hi-fidelity wireframes
After the marvel prototype was tested, I continued the project in Adobe XD and created high-fidelity wireframes that addressed the feedback I got.
Next Steps
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Hi-fidelity mockups will be added to as I continue developing the UI of this application with help from preference test results
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I also plan to add the full information architecture, and style guide