June, 2019 - August, 2019

 

Panasonic IVI UX Research

In a pursuit to refine Panasonic's proprietary in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system, I created a study to have our team research and experience the industry's newest, most innovative technologies first-hand.

 
 
 
 
 
 

High-Level

The goal of this project was to gain empathy with users of the newest vehicle tech systems - users who may not have experience driving Teslas, vehicles with BMW's iDrive technology, or even vehicles with head-up displays. We searched for pros and cons to each system, so that we could use this knowledge while designing our own interfaces.

Over a 3-week period, our team benchmarked a total of 6 new vehicles.

 
 
 

Summary of project

Here’s a list of things that I personally did to carry out this UX research study:

  • Oversaw the carrying out of a total of 41 usability tests, and 21 heuristic evaluations

    • Personally conducted 14 usability tests and 6 heuristic evaluations (plus 1 each for training and workshopping purposes)

  • Created usability tests specific to each vehicle

  • Created team documents and cheat-sheets for note-taking during usability tests and heuristic evaluations

  • Trained our internal UX/ID design team on how to properly conduct a usability test and heuristic evaluations

  • Personally conducted internal workshops to practice various UX benchmarking methods

  • Created training videos to accompany my internal workshops

  • Coded all benchmarking results into various formats for internal use in different departments

  • Created summary slides for each benchmarked vehicle, showing key takeaways, and areas that could be addressable by design

  • Scheduled and planned the initial arrival/pickup of each vehicle, as well as which team members took vehicles home for the evening

  • Coordinated with other teams who wanted benchmarking time with the vehicles while we had them

 
 
 
 
 
 

Aiming to gather the bulk of our information through Heuristic Evaluations and Usability Tests, my first step was to train my team on how to properly conduct both types of evaluations. After a series of workshops where I explained the differences and importance of each type of evaluation, as well as conducted demo evaluations with my team, I created the evaluation sheets, as well as the usability test guides (both shown above) for each of the vehicles we were benchmarking.

Once our data was collected, organized and coded for easy distribution, I replicated the data in a variety of mediums so that various departments could easily access and understand the information that we elicited from our research.

 
 
 

Usability Test Demo

Using my own vehicle, I came up with a short usability test to demonstrate to my team how to properly set up, conduct, and conclude a usability test.

The video is not the entire usability test, but rather an overview of the most important steps, specific to our benchmarking.

Jaguar Industrial Design Teaser

Upon receival of each benchmarked vehicle, I made sure to thoroughly document the vehicle interiors for our industrial design team, as well as all of the IVI screens for later reference.

During some of my down-time, I quickly put together this short clip of the I-Pace using that old footage.