General Motors Innovation Lab
In Fall 2018, I had the opportunity to co-op at the General Motors Innovation Lab at Communitech as a UI/UX Designer. During my time at GM, I had the chance to ideate and prototype new ideas for mobile and in-vehicle experiences, do market research, and run design workshops within the company to help promote outside-of-the-box ideas for the future of mobility.
Project Type: Co-op
Time: September - December 2018
Role: UI/UX Designer
Skills: User Research, Journey Mapping, Wireframing, User Testing
Tools: Sketch, Adobe XD, Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator
Informing drivers of car mechanics
Overview
General Motors, and car companies in general, are constantly creating new in-vehicle features to help track, maintain, and advise users about their vehicle to give them an informative driving experience.
Challenge
During my coop, I investigated effective ways to inform drivers of mechanical issues with their vehicle. The challenge was in what location do we alert drivers and with what message so that they perform the necessary actions. For example, if we alert a driver with a message that is meant to inform that something will need to be fixed in the near future (i.e. it's not pressing), but they drive to the mechanic as soon as they see it, then the message is ineffective.
Approach
The team looked at prototyping some ideas on how to inform the user of their car's problems. We looked at implementing features in the MyBrand OnStar App, the Infotainment system, as well as the Drivers Information Center (DIC). We also looked at what kind of messages we could use to inform the user. These messages will need to be clear and informative, but not distract drivers.
We created different alerts with things like 'Service soon', 'Service within 1000 km', 'Service at your earliest convenience' for the new features GM is looking to maintain with car sensors. We also looked at how the differences in colour affected the perception of the car issues. We compared blue and green, as well as orange, yellow, and red to understand how the colours influenced their next actions.
Please note that these prototypes were for testing messaging and user behaviour only - we were not looking at the visual aspect of how the features would look on the systems. That is to be designed at a later date, with further research from the HMI team.
Sample of MyBrand App and Infotainment Screens we used for testing
Testing
For user testing, I wanted to simulate the real environment where users would experience these notifications - the car. So we conducted the user interviews from our GM vehicle, where users were able to drive. We placed our infotainment designs on the dashboard of the car and asked the user to sit in the driver's seat. We prompted the users with alerts and asked them what they would do if they saw the messages, what they thought the message was saying, and other various questions.
Results
We found that a lot of people take alerts during a drive with more severity than was originally assumed. Users would pull over or check details at the end of the trip if an alert popped up while driving. We determined for non-pressing matters that an alert when the car is first started would be more effective in providing the correct message to drivers.
At this point in the project, we had shared our insights with the algorithm developers and suggested more research be done on messaging, images displayed, and the colours to use before release.
Problem
Another project I worked on this term was doing market research to understand the pickup truck market share that GM possesses in the Greater Toronto Area. GM currently holds only 20% of the market in this region, being beat by both Ford and Dodge.
Approach
We wanted to know why GM wasn't popular in the GTA, so we set out to talk with recent truck buyers who had purchased other trucks. We asked them questions about what kind of brands they like, what they look for in vehicles and trucks, and their reasons for owning trucks. We asked about their truck buying purchases - how they bought them, what their dealership experience was like, and their reasoning behind getting a new vehicle.
We did recaps of the interviews to understand the people and the insights that they had to share.
Finding the market space
Drafting my user insights after an interview with a recent truck buyer.
Results
One of the things that we noticed through our interviews and insight mapping was that most people who own trucks have previously owned trucks of the same make and model. There were quite of few people who had returned to the same dealership and purchased a newer model of the truck they had before.
We also learned that the dealership plays a vital role in one's relationship with cars, and purchasing cars. There were people who had never returned to dealerships that they had received inadequate service at decades before or would ever purchase a specific brand due to their dealership experiences.
Recommendations
Ultimately, the biggest insight we received is that truck drivers in the GTA are very brand loyal and don't look to buy another brand when it is time to buy a new vehicle. Therefore, GM and their GTA dealerships should look to target the first time truck buyers user segment.
I was tasked with redesigning the Canadian Technical Center internal website. It was mainly to clean up the interface and create a seamless user experience to locate the policies and procedures of GM. This was my first time making icons and so I thought I would share them!
Safety Icons
My GM Canadian Technical Centre Safety Icon Pack created in Illustrator