OpenCar Platform

The INRIX OpenCar platform was designed to allow auto manufacturers to offer popular, usable apps as a standard feature on their vehicle head unit displays.

MY ROLE

  • Adapt apps from well-known content providers such as Yelp, Napster, Glympse, Nest, and NPR One to the OpenCar platform that adhered to brand and driver safety guidelines.

  • Provide design recommendations for apps and platform-wide behaviors based on usability studies.

  • Design a new auto profile to demonstrate how the OpenCar platform and app content could be adapted for use by multiple auto manufacturers with a distinctly different look and feel than other adaptations.

New profile for auto: music app

I designed this new auto profile for sales to demonstrate how the OpenCar platform and app content could be adapted and branded for a manufacturer's existing brand. 

Search behavior between location-based apps

In order to provide optimal usability and reduce typing while driving, our team wanted to outline how saving and sharing the data for recent searches could provide value to users. However, if sharing data wasn't done carefully, usability could be hindered by burying useful data below irrelevant data. For example if a user searched for multiple restaurants via Yelp, pulling them into the navigation search results could be detrimental to the user, as the intent of the user to visit another restaurant from that search in the near future could be fairly low.

I created the below diagrams to catalog the different data types and UX recommendations for sharing between all of the different type of apps on the OpenCar platform. 

Search sharing between location-based apps

Search sharing between audio apps

The below diagram illustrated how the data outlined in the above diagrams was displayed in the product UI for point of interest (POI) apps. Similar diagrams were created for each type of app, to outline the platform rules and ensure consistency of placement.

User Flow: adding point of interest to navigation

To illustrate the number of taps to complete a common use case of searching for another destination to add while en route. The top row showed this would take 11 taps IF the user had searched for the location previously. The 2nd row promoted adding a “View on Map” feature as a way to reduce taps and give the driver more insight into the convenience of one location over another, as distance doesn’t always provide enough.

Thanks to Julian Burford for the free storyboard illustrations: https://bit.ly/1IyCPEu !