Elektron
Infotainment System
Client
WARP
Solution
UX Design
Location & Year
The Netherlands © 2022
Summary
We were assigned a new project, in our first year of the study: Communication & Multimedia Design. The client who assigned us the project was a development and design agency, called WARP (WeAreReasonablePeople).
WARP was designing a new car, called the “Lightyear One”. This car is driven by solar energy. Besides all the other cool and refreshing features in the car, WARP asked us to design a new infotainment system for the Lightyear One.
assignment
WARP gave us the following assignment: “How can we design an infotainment system so that all the buttons become unnecessary, and the driver can control all the functions in one place, without compromising user-friendliness?”.
After doing some research, we knew we wanted to desgin a system build for young drivers, aged 18-25 who mostly drive the car with friends for recreational use. This became our target audience for the rest of the assignment.
Process
Iteration 1 was all about doing research. This meant the team was doing desk research for their part of the infotainment system, while we also planned to go on a field research and look at different infotainment systems ourselves! After each of our individual desk researches, we planned to visit Polestar and Cupra dealers, just to look at their infotainment systems.
After we gathered enough data, ideas and information on the best infotainment systems out there, we started to cync our ideas into small designs. Every team member started making wireframes for their part of the system, while also communication about the global parts of the system!
I started developing the “Communication” side of the infotainment system. There were a few components that had to be included in the infotainment system, such as to:
– Start / decline / hang up / receive or mute a phone call;
– Access the numeric keypad;
– Add a caller to the active call;
– Receive messages and opening them;
– Choose which phone is connected to the car and;
– Be able to turn on/off a “Do not disturb” function.
Iteration 2 started with the real development in Figma. I worked the wireframes, made in Iteration 1, out into prototypes, which I tested on 3 guests from our target audience. Out of these tests I chose the prototype which I thought was the best one to further develop. With the feedback I had received from the tests, I changed the prototype a little bit so it included some wishes and extra features from the target audience.
Iteration 3 was all about perfecting the current prototype. The components that had to be in the infotainment system were already all there. As a team we tried to think of more user friendly options, like adding a dark mode. I eventually copied all the components and turned them into a dark design.
For the final product we put all the components in one final flow so the user was ready to start testing the finished prototype.
Results
The final design included all the features needed for our target audience. When the user enters the home screen a pop-up will appear with Aaron (your friend in this scenario) calling you. You can choose to accept the accept or decline the phone call or to accept the phone call with the camera turned on. The last option was an extra component I thought of when the team discussed the safety of calling inside the vehicle while driving.
After answering the phone call the user gets send to the ‘active-call screen’. In here you can see how long you’ve been calling with the other contact and have a lot of options to choose from, such as: Ending the call, mute the call, turn on videocall, accessing the keypad or even adding another contact to the already active call.
This project showed me all the possible things you can do with Figma. At first I had to find my way into this incredible software, but after watching some videos and reading a lot of articles, about the things you can do with Figma, I started to understand the program perfectly.
It made me enthousiastic for the next design project so I could work with Figma some more!
