Hyperloop HUD
ROLE: UX Designer
DURATION: 6 weeks
TEAM: 3 designers
You know Elon Musk. You probably know about the Boring Company, and the still-in-development concept of the Hyperloop: self-driving cars riding at top speed in hi-tech tunnels, designed to create a faster, more personalized traveling experience within large cities. And also because Elon really hates public transportation.
Who's Riding?
My team’s first move in defining our problem statement and persona was to interview what we viewed as the target audience: tech-savvy professionals! People who are constantly on the move and need to be somewhere right on time, who have the disposable income to pay for these rides on a somewhat regular basis, and who would have more exacting standards when it came to riding in style, baby.
From the info we gathered from our wonderful interviewees, we created our persona, Tech-Savvy Tori!
Now that we had defined our persona, we came up with our:
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Due to tardiness, anxiety-inducing behaviors and disorganization from singular and mass transportation services, users of car services often feel unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and not in control at any stage of their journey from point A to point B.
In light of that, HOW MIGHT WE make the rider feel safe and secure during their travel?
HOW MIGHT WE show the user they are in control of their internal environment?
Heated Seats: A Dealbreaker?
From here, we wanted to define what features were necessary for Tori to feel comfortable and in control during her ride. After running a card sort and a competitive analysis (breaking down the offerings of competitors such as Uber, Lyft, CitiBike and public transportation options), we solidified what our most important needs were. Heated seats were not mentioned once. I was very disappointed.
Feelin' Moody
We also did our own Mood Boards to find our style, then combined them into one master board that would influence our design decisions moving forward (and give us our color palette)!
With my deep and undying love for videogames and AR, designing a heads up display for the Hyperloop was definitely adjacent to my interests, and let me play in those spaces a bit during the designing of this. As you can see from the master Mood Board, there were definitely some touches in there that appealed to the gamer side of me.
Feature Creep
With all the data we got from the card sort, we went forward to define our user flow - and got a little carried away. After creating our first user flow, we realized that we would all be fully six feet under before we could prototype everything in that flow. We went back to our insights from the user interviews we performed and whittled all those needs and wants down to the most-oft mentioned activities done during our users’ commutes: catching up on work (frequently through checking emails) and keeping an eye on their estimated time of arrival (“ETA”). And there we had it! Our new User Flow officially did not look like the cork board of a conspiracy theorist!
Let it ride
Finally, before beginning to design, we defined the “site map,” which was really just a branching feature map that users would pick through on the connected tablet, which the HUD would then reflect, creating a customized UI tailored to the user’s needs. This was a critical step towards designing the look of the tablet (which was not designed by me, for the record - that was another wonderful designer on my team) and to streamline the tablet-HUD interaction.
Wanna connect?
Go ahead. I don't bite.