Charging has never been so efficient.

Overview

Service Design, UX/UI Design, Industrial Design

Sep. 2021 - Nov. 2021

This is a course-based project (ID6212-Service Design, Brand, Value Creation), and was completed with two other GT MID students, Mixuan Li and Leon Luo.

Compared to the existing service, it can provide battery swapping service for multiple vehicles at the same time. In addition, our battery swap stations will be much smarter. The drive-in, battery swapping, and drive-out processes will be fully automated.

My Contribution

Exploring design opportunities

I was responsible for conducting research on the target market, understanding the entire ecosystem, and working with my team members to complete an ecosystem map and value creation analysis. Also, reaching out to EV users and conducting semi-structured interviews. Then worked with team members to build persona models, empathy maps, and journey maps to explore additional opportunities.

80% UI/UX Design

I managed the scheduling and facilitation of the application design and conducted most design work. Mixuan and I built the user flow and I created the key features of the low-fidelity to high-fidelity prototype and conducted user testing to refine the prototype. In addition, I designed the logo and set up the visual guidelines. I also created physical models for better testing and presentation.

**“The future of mobility will be electric, with EVs squarely in the center of climate-friendly transportation options.”**

EVs won't be able to completely replace gasoline vehicles for a while, so how can we facilitate this process?

Ecosystem Map

By analyzing the ecosystem map, we have a basic understanding of the stakeholders, organizations, and the value change between them for EV manufacturers. We found that the main stakeholders are dealers, suppliers, technicians, battery recycling companies, and charging stations. The suppliers provide the company with some components and batteries, and the dealers help the company to sell the vehicles and ensure the after-sales service. The grid companies help to build the charging stations and the electricity delivery, and the collection centers are responsible for recycling the car batteries and waste parts.

Interview

Hypothesis

In the future, electric vehicles will replace traditional fuel vehicles completely in the market.

Interviewees

We did interviews with both users and dealers to explore different perspectives.

Goal

Explore the different user experiences while driving fuel cars and EVs.
Understand EVs’ advantages precisely.
Help us to determine our target users.
Find the pain points while driving EVs, and explore possible solutions.

Interview Questions

Users

Why did you choose electric car instead of fuel car?
What is the most common scenario of using EV in daily life?
What makes you satisfied or uncomfortable while driving EV?
What if to buy another new car, will you choose the EV or fuel vehicle?
Whether you have difficulty finding a charging station?
What's the differences between driving fuel cars and EV?

Dealers

What kind of people would prefer EV?
Do you think the EV industry is promising?
What are the customers' opinions of the interior design compares to classic luxury sedan?
Whether users have difficulty finding a charging station?
What's the sale of EV compared to fuel vehicles?
What are the strengths of your products?

Personas

Empathy Map

Target users

People who are willing to try new technologies
Enjoy driving EV

Needs

More charging stations
Less charging time
Stable software
Safety device

AS-IS Journey Map

Painpoints

Must use brand-specific charging posts
Long charging time. Although charging stations have fast charging ports, it still takes an hour to fully charge
Charging stations are not common in remote areas
Batteries degrade quickly and the value of EVs in the used car market is rapidly declining
EV use scenarios are limited.

Advantages

Charging is cheaper than refueling
Low maintenance costs

01 Advertisement

Diversified the method of publicity

02 Info-provider

Access to proper information easily

03 Charging efficiency (picked)

Curtail the time of charging/ Improve the experience while charging

Opportunities

04 Battery tracking

Battery tracking for whole lifespan

05 Traffic regulation

Route management for highly advanced electric vehicles

06 Sharing economy

To set up a complete electric vehicles sharing system

Existing Product & Analysis

Swapping station

When we have the idea of swapping batteries, we did the market research and found that Nio had already built up some swapping stations.

The reasons why it is not applicable

Only Only available for Nio's cars, other brands of EVs are available.
Multiple cars cannot be swapped at the same time.
The blackout during the exchange process causes user anxiety.

Value Proposition

End-users

Services are provided not only to private EVs, but also to electric public transportation, such as cabs or Uber.

Opportunity

Create an effective way to reduce charging time; facilitate battery recycling management; and provide customers with satisfactory power supply services.

Solutions

Provide simultaneous multi-window battery replacement services for multiple makes and models of electric vehicles in the future, with a high degree of uniformity in battery specifications and technology.

TO-BE Journey Map

In the TO-BE journey map, with the popularity of the swapping stations, we can imagine that the time required is greatly reduced. In addition, it enhances the emotional experience of the user during the power change.

Business Model

Branding

Color

Logo

Name

User Flow

We built the user flow by conceptualizing the whole process of swapping the battery for an electric vehicle. This process contributes to further design.

Lo-fi Prototype

User Test

Final Prototype

Notification

When the phone is connected to the EV, a window will automatically pop up to remind the user to swap the battery when the battery percentage is below 30% and there is a swap station nearby.