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A Car App Fit for an Electrified Future

End-to-end delivery of the Acura EV app experience to accompany the ZDX launch

Date: Feb - Oct 2023

Role: Design Lead

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In Aug 2023 Acura announced their first ever all-electric EV: The Acura ZDX. To support this launch, Accenture was asked to build an app to support the car’s features and Acura’s customer experience. I was asked to lead the design effort across a complex cross-stream program to define the end to end design for delivery.

My Role

I was the sole Design Lead on this project overseeing: Product Design, UX, Research, and Testing, I was responsible for communicating all designs and insights to the Engineering and Client teams.

I was responsible for:

  • Design Vision & Strategy. The organization and standard of the Design System, all flows, IA, and prototypes.

  • Day-to-Day Operations. Overseeing a mixed Design team with 5 designers.

  • Customer Insights. Leading the outputs of the Research team (3 researchers)

  • Oversight & Coordination. The speed and quality of delivery, and handover between the Design, Engineering, and Client teams.

The Ask

Craft a seamless experience of all requirements by 2024 launch.

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The team was asked to create a net-new Acura EV app experience. The app must be a redesign of the current Acura & Honda apps, combining all legacy features and also including newly added EV features into a single, seamless app.

 

The team worked with Honda UX and Accenture development in integrated teams to ensure features aligned with development requirements, various value streams across Honda, Legal, Accessibility guidelines, and Canadian translation.

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Our Approach

Strategic Design Delivery

This project presented many fruitful discussions in the best approach for all things UX, from what to label the navigation to the image ratios on cards. 

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To ensure the best UX, our approach focused on:​

  • Creating a scalable and intuitive atomic Design System, to support over 25 individual features, 400 components, and 1,200 screens.

  • Ensuring design decisions were firmly routed in research and usability principles to maximize usability in the complex and layered experience.

  • Leading the experience vision and handover across 3 Accenture teams, a client team, and the client stakeholders.

The Acura EV app

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Default car dashboard

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Charging dashboard

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Vehicle management hub

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Vehicle delivery tracking

Key Features & Flows

  1. Vehicle commands (Lock, Car Climate, Locate Vehicle) *

  2. Monitor and control EV charging *

  3. Map with EV charging availability data (EVgo & PlugShare)*

  4. Order delivery tracking

  5. Customer registration

  6. Customer onboarding

  7. Customer Help Center

  8. User Profile, Notifications, Settings & Message Center

  9. Schedule Vehicle Maintenance

  10. Monitor Vehicle status

  11. Schedule charge time

  12. Browse EV articles

  13. Manage Finances

  14. Manage connected features

  15. …and more!

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* Most important

Sending remote commands from the app

The Keys to Our Success

The Acura EV app became available on the app store in April of 2024, launched on time with full functionality and a a very happy client.

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Designing for Delivery

We created a meticulous design tracking & approval process to ensure effective handover to development.

  • Figma. 1 page per feature, with an intensive Production Design Process carried out on every component, screen, and flow.

  • Approver Sign Off. We tracked our progress in JIRA and asked our client approvers to provide written approval to ensure we could lock requirements for developer handoff.

  • "Ready for Dev". Figma's dev mode was launched during this project at the perfect time, and helped us communicate all requirements and functionality to the dev team.

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Atomic Design System

Our 400+ component design system was organized by similar atoms, and then the components were by feature, helping us track the number of features and requirements in one place.

  • Vehicle Control & Status. Commands for lock/unlock, locating the car, and monitoring warning lights.

  • Charging Management. Nearby charging stations, and control charging settings both at home and in public spaces.

  • Vehicle Management. Repairs, scheduling maintenance, and monitoring connected features.

  • Branded Content Integration. Curated news, educational resources on EV technology, and convenient access to related merchandise through integrated shopping features.

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User Workflows (UWFs)

Each Figma page had all the UWFs associated with that feature, some as high as 10 UWFs, over 1200 screens total
Included in each UWF:

  • A screenflow of the “happy paths”

  • All error states & edge cases

  • Documentation of guidelines, behaviors, gestures, etc, intended from design for dev

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Design Thinking Throughout

As the design contribution to this project lasted a couple years, our success was in our consistent use of design thinking. We used a variety of methods to ensure the customer was centered in the experience, and the most value was delivered.

  • Exploratory Customer Research

  • Competitive & Landscape Analysis

  • Rapid Prototyping

  • Usability Testing

A Best-In-Class Car Owner App

Our strategic delivery of the Acura EV app resulted in the most robust car owner app available on the market, see the overview video below.

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