Problem Statement
When people encounter car emergencies, like flat tires or other mechanical problems, they call the next reliable person they know to seek roadside help. The problem is not everyone has access to such reliable people.
My late father was a car person. He knew the right auto shops, which second-hand cars to buy, and of course, he was the first person we called during car emergency situations. After he suddenly passed away, his three daughters, who are clearly not car enthusiasts, had difficulties in maintaining and servicing our cars. I believe we’re not the only one.
Servicing and maintaining cars were never a picnic in the first place, especially for people who are not automotive enthusiasts. Browsing for auto repair shops, comparing prices, and tracking past maintenance history are time-wasting and tiresome processes, let alone facing unexpected mechanical problems in the middle of the road.
About The Product
Autozy is an app that offers reliable roadside help for users who need it and also an appointment booking feature for car maintenance.
The name itself was inspired by ‘auto’ and ‘easy’ pronunciation combined. The goal is to help frustrating users when they have mechanical problems but have no one to call. Just a few clicks and mechanics are on the way to the rescue. This app also keeps a record of car maintenance history. Users can look them up every time they need to check when was the last time they had their tires changed.
Note: This app concept is a fictional app that I created in order to learning deeply about UI/UX design process.
Design Process
Competitive analysis is the first stage I worked on, being not familiar with auto repair apps myself. Competitive analysis stage has given me a much clearer vision about how car fix apps work, and what special features they all share, and their weaknesses as well.
After analyzing the competition out there and studying user's journey as the initial ideate phase, I decided to jump to the design stage. The wireframing process was a big help in stimulating ideas to flow, the same way how sketching building form at the initial stage of an architectural project helped me envision the main concept for a house. It helped me forecast the user journey even better, what features I can implement, and in the end, what questions I want to ask the potential users. Sketching puts my imagination on high speed.
My Role
UX Researcher
UI/UX Designer
Duration
May-August 20222
Target Users
People who actively use personal vehicle (cars and motorcycles) without basic knowledge of mechanics.
User Interview
I conducted in-depth interviews with 8 target users to validate the existing, underlying problem.
Interview Questions:
- Do you actively use personal vehicle?
- Have you ever experienced mechanical trouble on the road? If yes, what happened?
- Who did you call for help when emergencies like that happened?
- Have you ever ask a stranger to help with your vehicle?
- Have you tried to find help through an application? If yes, what application was that? Was it reliable?
- If there's an app that could help you find roadside assistance during emergencies, would you like to give it a try?
- What kind of vehicle maintenance do you do frequently?
- What are the pain points of taking your car to auto shops for maintenance or repairing? How do you think a technology could improve the whole experience?
- Do you consider yourself an automotive or mechanical enthusiast?
User Survey
I also conducted surveys to 18 respondents to get quantitative data about the existing problems to support the insight points I got from the user interviews.
Affinity Mapping
I use the affinity mapping method so I can get a clearer version of the insights I got from the interviews and divide them into categories.
Insights from Interview: Pain Points
- Trust issues with mechanics and auto-shop
- Little knowledge about car mechanical
- Finding time to go to auto shops
- Doesn’t have a reliable person to help during an emergency
- Stuck with unreliable mechanics
Insights from Interview: Key Insights
- Users don’t trust mechanics and auto-shops.
- The most common problems they occurs on the road are flat tires and flat batteries
- Most users never use roadside help app before, but willing to try if there’s a reliable one.
- Auto service app that offers help in emergency situation is a good idea
Competitive Analysis
Competitive analysis has assisted me to see what’s already out there, and are my target users using it, and what features are not offered to to the market yet. It actually gives me the big picture of what a car maintenance app looks like.
When I can see the big picture, it accelerates the design progress and smooths things out. Unfortunately, there aren’t many active similar apps available in Indonesia. So far, I’ve found two apps that look assuring and reliable enough.
User Journey Map
When experiencing unexpected car problems, users are experiencing many agonizing emotions, such as shock, anger and frustration.
Designing the flow of the app has to include considerations of users current fragile emotions. We don’t want to make exasperated users even angrier. That’s why it’s important to forecast users emotions throughout using this app.
User Flow
We allow new users to get to the homepage without signing up first, to offer easiness during frustrating situations.
First impression matters, I believe. That’s why in this user flow, the most critical point is the onboarding experience, or when new users are directed to the homepage to start exploring our services. To optimize the onboarding experience, we allow new users to enter homepage directly. To allow new users to start using the app before signing app is one way to offer them easiness in the midst of chaos .
User Interface
Blue is associated with calm and trust.
The objective of blue color in this app is to give a little sense of calm in the middle of agonizing situations. I tried to minimize any unnecessary options and UI components because angry and panicking users don’t feel like finding roadside assistance features on a crowded screen with tiny, scattered texts and buttons.
User Test
To prevent any designer bias, I conducted user testing sessions with 4 people to confirm the usability of my app prototype. Some sessions conducted with Maze, and some conducted through offline moderated sessions.
User Tasks:
Book a mechanic to a location during flat tire situation.
Book an appointment with a repair shop (Bengkel Sejahtera) for a tune up service.
Check tune-up services history and set a reminder for next tune-up session.
Add a new car (Renault) to your vehicle list.
Insights from User Testing
- Most users had difficulties in finding maintenance tracker feature because they assumed it was in the same section as 'maintenance history'. It was also due to UX writing error that I hadn't find the right Indonesian words for 'tracker'.
- Two users mistaken the 'Maintenance Tracker' as a feature to find auto shops for maintenance. One user prefer to state the preferred maintenance first and then searching for the recommended auto shops based on needs.
- A request for adding vehicle administration (tax, driving license, etc. ) reminder as well
- One user had difficulty in ordering roadside assistance during flat tire situation. The user didn't notice there's a button that specifically direct users to tire service roadside assistance.
- One user mistaken the notification 'bell' button on the top as a feature to turn on maintenance reminder.
Lessons Learned
Designing for users who's going through frustrating situation calls for deeper analyzing for making the best design decisions. I might have made some careless decisions throughout the process that resulting in some users weren't able or delayed in finishing some tasks. Here are some improvements I'd consider:
- Put some better word choice for feature buttons, especially for 'Maintenance Tracker' button in Indonesian.
- Combine 'Maintenance Tracker' with "Maintenance History' together under one entry point.
- Under 'Emergency' page, place the 'Tire Service' and 'Battery' on the top because flat tires and batteries happens more often that other vehicle problems.
