Making Safe Driving Fun

Rethinking the connected electric vehicle experience and differentiating Xenos.

Interaction design course project through Northwestern University.

Responsibilities: UX Research and Design

Duration: Jan - Mar 2024

Tools: Miro, Figma

Team: Tracy Do, Madeline Farace, and Audey Shen

Xenos is a fictional car company that has hired us to differentiate them from other EV companies using two affinities: play and safety. Our team created Xenos Quest, a game that encourages safe driving through rewards.

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How might we differentiate Xenos from other EV car companies?

We conducted 9 in-depth interviews with real EV owners and asked about their experience with electric vehicles. We learned two main insights:

USEFUL FEATURES: Users feel there are extra features in EV cars that are unnecessary.

"I don’t like those gimmicky features on my Tesla like the fart noises for the horn"

"I don’t use games or karaoke features in my car. I find them to be unnecessary"

Therefore… Users want features that make their lives better.

UNPREDICTABILITY: EV drivers don’t feel like they’re in full control of their car compared to when they owned a gas car.

"Car companies have told me auto drive is not trustworthy"

"I would rather be able to choose if I want to control my car from my app or the car itself"

Therefore… EV Drivers want transparent information about how their actions affect the vehicle.

One of our interviewees mentioned a unique problem situation that became our opportunity for change. From there, we interviewed more drivers in similar situations and created two personas.

Meet James

He just turned 16 and is now learning to drive.

Meet Tanya

Tanya is James’ mom. She has a tight monthly budget. She is interested in buying an EV vehicle but she is worried about James’ safety and his inflated insurance cost as a new driver.

PROBLEM: EV owners with children learning to drive are at higher risks of being charged higher insurance costs. Drivers who want to drive safer and save money are less likely to purchase electric vehicles for this reason.

So, how might we encourage drivers to drive safer by incorporating play into driving?

In order to generate sales for Xenos, it was also important to create a feature that is both useful and allows driving EVs to be more predictable for drivers as our interviewees mentioned.

INTRODUCING XENOS QUEST: A driving system that gives drivers points for demonstrating safe driving and lets them redeem points to receive rewards through gamification.

It includes two parts: An in-car dashboard game and connected app for using rewards.

Now drivers can:

Earn points each time they demonstrate safe driving
Redeem points to receive rewards in the category of choice
Can only earn points and can’t lose points, they will never be negatively affected by their driving habits

We created prototypes that we user tested in a second round of interviews. We learned 4 key insights which became the basis of our solution.

IN-CAR DASHBOARD GAME

INSIGHT 01: Sensory Overload
Visual and auditory signifiers meant to help drivers drive safely are perceived as equally or even more distracting as other external distractions (e.g. cell phones, kids, backseat drivers).

"I want the option to turn it off and to be able to still earn the points from a dashboard"

Features:

Live, non-attention grabbing updates in the dashboard while driving
Ability hide the feature
End of drive summary

REWARDS APPLICATION

INSIGHT 02: Tiered System
Advancing through tiers creates a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, as drivers can visually see their progress and the rewards associated with reaching higher tiers.

"If I increased in tier I would feel like I'm getting more prizes, and that is more motivating"

Features:

A sense of accomplishment and satisfaction through tiers
Visually see your progress and goals
Higher tiers means better and more rewards

INSIGHT 03: Personalized Reward System
For some, saving money on frequent inevitable expenses feels more significant than saving money on one-off purchases.

"We need food to survive… it would be nice to be able to save money on groceries since it's a huge part of my life:"

Features:

Drivers can choose how to redeem their points
Rewards include a variety of redemption options including practical points like groceries.

INSIGHT 04: Transparency
Drivers are more likely to engage in an activity if they understand the reasoning behind it.

"If it showed more analytics or details on driving then I would be more likely to check."

Features:

Visually see how you can earn and reach next tier
Builds trust between drivers and the gamified system
Gives feedback to encourage drivers to improve driving behavior

Now, with Xenos Quest, Tanya can save money and feel confident about James driving. She saves money by redeeming discounts on insurance for James and points for grocery and other activities.

And James enjoys learning to drive and is incentivized to drive as safe as he can, which is especially relieving for Tanya.

Lessons Learned:

Balancing the needs of all the stakeholders can be challenging and having proof of customer quotes is important when standing up for the user.
It is important to consider all edge cases and the limitations of current technologies when creating new concepts.