Project Scope

This case study was completed in 2017, after my first year studying Design & Interaction at UCSD to push my design skills. Since then, I revisited the project and updated it after collaborating with the Creative Director from my internship at Quad. This project started during a vacation trip to Maui, where I had the perfect opportunity to observe friends use Waze while driving around in an unfamiliar environment.

Roles:
User Researcher | Interaction Designer

Research Skills Used:
User Interviews
Digital Ethnography
Persona Creation
Contextual Inquiry
Affinity Diagramming
Usability Testing

Timeline:
The project was completed in 5 weeks. All this time was used to:

• plan out my research approach

• schedule research sessions

• gather pain points

• create and iterate design solutions

• determine business impact

Utilizing User Interviews and Digital Ethnography

I began my process trying to understand Waze’s user base. I approached this by conducting 5 user interviews. According to Nielsen Norman Group, one of the leading UX/UXR resources, I learned that interviewing 5 users is optimal for gathering information. Then, to deepen my understanding, I also conducted digital ethnography and read through online forums to quickly uncover rich insights and experiences. I found that their target users are very diverse, and many use the app for various reasons, from its unique routing capabilities, to its ability to report speed traps.

Going Into the Field to Analyze Task Flows

After identifying their needs, I conducted contextual inquiries in participants’ vehicles because the project was still in an exploratory phase; I wanted to uncover as many pain points as I could. I provided various scenarios to participants while they were driving to simulate a real-use setting. An example of some scenarios I used were:

• Imagine you saw a minor crash on the road, how would you report that?

• If you wanted to find the closest fast food restaurant, what steps would you take?

I decided to complete 7 contextual inquiry sessions because I wasn’t learning anything new after the 5th session. Then I gathered my findings and created an affinity diagram to identify pain point patterns.

I observed various tasks, but decided to explore the search and report experiences more. These are key features that many people use, so I wanted to prioritize them. Below you’ll see my observations and the flows participants went on to report a minor crash and search for a location.

I found that participants took too much time to complete these tasks because of a collection of errors. From my observations during the report task flow, 6/7 participants were overwhelmed from task switching between driving and completing the task. Those same participants also expressed that they didn’t feel safe because the entire map was blocked from their view. The search feature was also unconventionally designed, and caused some frustration because of inconsistent placement of location related features.

“I don’t like how I cannot see the map when

I’m reporting something. I just missed a highway exit!”

— participant

In summary, the participants struggled with task completion because the report task flow lacked simplicity while the search task flow lacked consistency.

User Persona

Christine Lambert, 22, Financial Analyst

Christine is a tech-savvy, full-time financial analyst and new user to Waze. She loves being able to see where police speed traps are during her commute to work and returns the favor by sending reports of her own while driving. However, she is starting to realize it isn’t very safe, she almost missed a highway exit and had an accident!

Need: She needs a simple report feature that makes her feel safe.

Other navigation-type apps used: Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Lyft

The Challenge

Users need centralized search and simple report

features so they can save time and drive safely.

Sketches to Paper Prototype

Then I created sketches with variations to encourage constructive feedback.

The sketch I created for the Search feature centralizes all location-related features. To emphasize GPS navigation for the Report feature, I debated between using a modal for the report options but learned about its disruptive nature for mobile interfaces. So I opted to place them into the map UI instead.

Quickly Testing & Gathering Feedback

I tested these sketches using a paper prototype, with a different group of participants. During testing, I provided slightly different scenarios from the first session. I gathered the following feedback and behaviors:

• Report options still blocked map UI

• Centralized Search made it easier to find location-related features

• Task success rate for reporting improved

I used Sketch to create hi-fi screens for the search and reporting features. I validated the redesigned experience with the same 7 participants from the first session of contextual inquiries.

Below are the redesigned experiences for search and reporting.

Hi-fidelity Prototype for Search

This solution focuses on quick access and matching user expectations by placing only one search bar at the top of the screen.

Users can tap on the search feature from the homepage to access all the location related features(Home, Work, Planned Drives, etc.) that were originally scattered between the 2 searches in the previous design. Users can also access the profile in 1 tap from the homepage by tapping on the icon in the bottom-left corner.

Hi-fidelity Prototype for Reporting

This solution focuses on providing safety and minimizing choice overload by reducing the number of report options to increase map visibility, and clearly signifying buttons.

When a user taps on the report feature, a panel of 4 options slides up from the edge of the screen. Users can report, and at the same time, keep the view of the map. The flow also doesn’t cover the map UI anymore to improve safety when reporting and buttons were redesigned to actually look like buttons.

Implementing Another Round of Feedback… 2 Years Later

Recently, at my internship with Quad and during a portfolio critique with my creative director in Nate Smith, we brainstormed more ways to improve the reporting experience. Since then, I’ve redesigned my previous solution using a scrolling gesture. The solution now displays all 10 report options, while maintaining map visibility.

Hypothetical Business Impact

Although this was a personal project, the business impact it would have include:

• An increase in revenue because more businesses would advertise themselves on the app after learning that more users will take unique routes(closer to their businesses) due to the increase in reports by the community.

• Users will be able to find destinations much quicker, improving user satisfaction and retention.

Conclusion & Future Steps

Since completing this redesign, Waze’s reporting process has changed. I want to compare my redesign to their updated screens and figure out the good and bad design decisions. Lastly, I’d love to conduct more usability tests to gain further insight on how to improve the redesign.