My user experience design intership with Honda Motor Co, where I was responsible for designing two key interaction points for Honda’s digital products.
Many automotive companies are hopping onto the "digital key" bandwagon, which is a card in your digital wallet that unlocks your vehicle without the need of the physical key. Neither Honda or Acura were apart of this experience yet. How might we design an on-brand digital keycard experience for both Honda and Acura vehicles?
I was tasked with ideating possible concepts for the keycards.
Digital Keycard(s)
Timeline
5 Days
Visual Designer
Team
Rich Tiernan (UI Lead)
Before exploring the visuals, I analyzed the brand’s design language, the materials used in their cars, and the connection people have with the vehicles. I also researched competitor keycard designs and considered what's popular—something minimal, abstract and visually engaging.
The inspiration for the visuals came from the little details that make up Honda's driving experience. I created the sleek lines of a racetrack, the silhouette of the car, the curve of a winding road, and the gleam of polished metal. These elements captured both the thrill of driving and Honda’s balance of technology and craftsmanship.
HondaLink, Honda's premiere mobile application, faces challenges with customer awareness and enrollment efficiency. Only 25% of customers purchasing vehicles are aware of the app or the 90-day complimentary trial. The self-enrollment process is also overly complex, requiring too many steps. How might we streamline and enhance the visibility of the HondaLink enrollment process to improve customer awareness and adoption rates?
The team and I were responsible for designing a pop-up that loads directly into the vehicle’s infotainment system, which has an enrollment QR code embedded within. This solution increases visibility by reminding customers of both the app itself and the complimentary 90-day trial.
Infotainment Flow
Timeline
14 Days
Interaction Designer
Team
Stuart Yamamoto (Project Lead)
Chandler Hunt (UX Designer)
Previous research was done by both Honda's UX and CX team. The entire digital services department was shocked to find out that only 1 in 4 Honda customers were aware of HondaLink's existence.
One-time sale vs. Recurring saleHonda's business model is composed of two types of sale— the one-time sale is the sale of their vehicles, while the recurring sale relies on a subscription-based model. HondaLink, AcuraLink and Acura EV are Honda's mobile apps that focus on user subscription models. A large goal for Honda's third quarter was to increase HondaLink sign-ups, specifically targeting the vast amount of users who own a Honda Accord.
The team had to work within some massive constraints to try and promote HondaLink awareness. After we analyzed the flowchart, we calculated that we'd only have a 2 second interaction point to pitch HondaLink to our users. Some other challenges were:
The use-case for the infotainment.The infotainment or any other in-vehicle interface isn't the best place to try and advertise. While the user is guaranteed to see anything we load into it, they're not necessarily paying attention to it like they would be with their mobile phone or television.
The size constraints of the screen.The screen sits further back from the user's eyes, and there's very limited screen real-estate to display information.
The content of the pop-up.Considering the limitations on the screen-size and user attention, the content and copy in this pop-up had to be attention grabbing, but succinct.
We started on a very lengthly design process. There were over 60 iterations completed before we landed on a choice for user testing. Some of the changes we explored were:
The original pop-up visual concept looked nothing like the infotainment interface. My suggestion as the interaction designer was to align our design within the existing framework that the interface already had.
The original concept had an image of a Honda car and a stock image of a person holding a phone. For the sake of saving screen space, we agreed to only display a phone screen of the app.
Because of the screen's placement on the console to the right of the user, we made an effort to place the QR code on the left side for ease.
The HondaLink app looks different depending on what model of car the user has. We recreated a "generic" version of the HondaLink app in Figma to showcase some of the main controls.
After recreating the infotainment's UI elements for our flow, we received feedback that these elements might look "clickable" to users when they're not supposed to be. We had to remove them.
Not only do we have such limited time and space to showcase information, but our copy also had to be translated to Spanish and French to work in our Canada/Mexico-based vehicles. Our copy had to be streamlined.
The final iteration.Our screen fuses a left-aligned QR code, a view of the HondaLink mobile app, and some quick copy discussing HondaLink's highlights into a visually seamless experience. This in-vehicle infotainment touchpoint provides a reminder of the customer’s enrollment status, and encourages activation in an authentic way.
"The only way to make a great product is to love what you do." - Soichiro Honda
On Digital Key.The digital keycard design project ended up being given to DriveMode— a satellite design company that works alongside Honda. Although my designs didn't end up being used for the final deliverable, my mentor said they could serve as an inspiration reference!
On Hondalink.This project was sent to user-testing the day after I completed my internship. I am unsure what iteration was chosen or if further iterations were done, but I am proud to know that I helped contribute to this touchpoint that will be in various Honda vehicles throughout North and Central America. It was a lesson in what "going back to the drawing board" truly means as a designer.