Reinventing electric car charging
Before we start I think you`ll want some background information. In 2021 a total of 176 000 passenger cars were registered for the first time, and according to numbers from SSB ( Bråthen, 2022 ) 65 % of these cars were electric cars. With the amount of electric cars on the road increasing, the demand for charging stations is increasing alongside it. New providers with new stations seem to be appearing constantly, but what about the users in all of this? Is all of this developing too fast or is this exactly what the user want?
In this project we will use the five stages in the design thinking process to disclose the users need and come up with a solution that will simplify every step of the charging process for users in Norway.
We are following the design thinking process in this project, and like any good designers we went back and forth between define, ideate, prototype and testing. I will not go in depth about that in this shortened version.
We have not proceeded to implementing the designs, and therefor lack results from the business perspective.
To get a deep understanding of the situation and our problem, we started by conducting research about the topic using various methods. All members of our team did their own literature reviews, while the tasks of conducting a survey and interviews were delegated to each member. I conducted one of the five interviews, and created the survey which was posted online to get participants.
After gathering and going through all the facts, we put all the facts on post-it’s in Miro. To get the most profound insights, we conducted both affinity and empathy mapping. We started with affinity mapping to get all the facts sorted by which of the research goals they answered, and to identify the themes. We continued by conducting empathy mapping to discover the insights that might have slipped past us during the affinity mapping.
Miro board:
Project exam ideation, Online Whiteboard for Visual Collaboration (miro.com)
Google sheets (facts on one sheet, insights on the second one):
Data capture - different resource methods - Google Regneark
To make sure we all envision similar solutions and to give us something to build our problem statement and vision statement on, the other members created a primary persona, context scenario, and key path scenario.
With this I could go ahead and write the 5 why`s, users perspective and user research perspective, POV (point of view) and our “how might we?” questions. Once this was done, I had a solid base to present both a vision and problem statement to the rest of the team.
Vision statement :
Suggestion for product name: PlugIn
We want to make the process of finding and using charging stations all over Norway easier and more predictable. We will do this by reducing the amount of knowledge and experience that`s required of the users, by including every step of the process in a single system.
Problem statement
Norwegians have a negative users experience with finding a charging station, because the current solutions require a lot of time, energy and effort from the users and there are too many different providers on the market. If we could solve this problem by simplifying the process and make it more predictable it would lower the bar for driving electric vehicles and increase the number of electric vehicles on the road in the long run.
Vision statement :
Suggestion for product name: PlugIn
We want to make the process of finding and using charging stations all over Norway easier and more predictable. We will do this by reducing the amount of knowledge and experience that`s required of the users, by including every step of the process in a single system.
Ideation workshop:
To get to the best idea, and to make sure we didn`t oversee important features, we applied a number of different methods in this part of the process. We conducted brainstorming, dot voting, brainwriting and the 100$ test with all members of the team present and actively participating.
Moving forward we decided to split the workload, as we felt this was the most efficient approach.
While one of our team members started creating our low fidelity wireframes, the rest of the team each conducted a couple of the following processes:
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Competetive analysis
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Content audit
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Requirements
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Information architecture
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User flow
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Task flow
Once this was done we could finally bring our ideas into a digital mid-fidelity wireframes:
When the wireframes were done we turned them into a prototype to begin our first round of usability testing. The purpose of the usability test of PlugIn was to verify the user friendliness and the user flow of navigation from welcome screen to map, finding charging stations, to starting and stopping the charging of an electric car. We also wanted to identify any usability issues and bugs.
Key findings
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Too much content on some of the frames.
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Users were missing colours.
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Users prefer to use the app without creating an account.
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Reduce the number of option and text on some of the frames e.g., information about a charging station.
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All participants managed to complete all tasks.
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All participants are satisfied with the user interface.
High fidelity prototype:
When creating the high fidelity wireframes, we made sure to have our priorities straight by keeping design guidlines for mobile in mind. In addition we focused on accessibilty. To achieve this, we look at the WCAG standard and make sure that the product is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
This was an absolute priority when putting together our design system/library:
After the second round of usability testing was completed we had a lot more constructive feedback to work on. Due to this being a school assignment we will not be able to implement the changes we would have wanted to. We all learned a lot during this process, especially how to se holes and flaws in your own design.
hese are therefore our recommendations on what improvements should be made to take PlugIn to the next level:
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Implement the option to select single sign on with companies like Vipps, Facebook and google to give the user an option to avoid having to fill out input fields.
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Include an icon to indicate where the user is located, and what direction their mobile device is facing. This would require a pop up to ask for their consent to let the app track their location.
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Show the user a price before they start charging to help them choose the cheapest station, if it is important to them. This can be done by showing a “kr per kW” underneath the different strengths or plug ins (depending on what variations there is) when the user is presented with an information page about the station.
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Include options to pre-determine when the charging is going to stop automatically. This can be done by letting the user select a certain time frame they can charge (eg. 45minutes) or until a certain percentage (eg. 80%).
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Notify the user when their charging is complete, regardless is this is due to it reaching 100%, or when it has reached their pre-determined limit. This will require a pop up to ask for their consent to send them notifications.
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Include a feature to let the user input their destination/route, and show what stations are along the way, to be able to easier plan their trip.
Summary of this case study
The marked for electric cars has blossomed in Norway in the past decade, and with it the demand for simple solutions regarding charging. With more and more suppliers of charging stations entering the marked, it becomes increasingly difficult for the users to navigate this maze of apps. The supplier’s motivation to improve and outshine their competition has become the downfall of the user experience regarding this process. Their constant improvements mean new apps, new features, and new systems the user has to rely on, which demands unnecessary time, energy and effort of the user. Even though their intentions of simplifying their own charging experience are good, their view is only limit to their own stations and not the rest of the jungle the user interfaces.
There is yet to be a monopoly of stations to make the experience predictable for the user every time they are going to charge their vehicle, and nothing indicates this will ever happen. The solution is therefor to give the user one secure home base to rely on for all their needs regarding charging of their vehicle. This would make the whole process predictable and homogenous for the users, regardless of location and station provider. The PlugIn app may not make the sheer mass of providers out there any smaller, but it gives the user an overview of all available stations and a chance to charge equally on any of them.
Even though the PlugIn app has received constructive criticism regarding it`s details, it contains the core elements to fill the hole we so clearly see in the marked today. By taking these into consideration, we believe PlugIn could become a postive shift in the user experience and be a big step towards increasing the amount of electric car drivers in Norway.