Project Description:
The Fleet Manager Portal (aka Car as a Service) was one of two projects I led for demonstration at CES by Harman. They were not real products yet, but were designed in detail and created in code to show the idea and potentially sell it to customers. The concept is that someone managing a fleet of vehicles can see where all are, see which ones need attention of some sort, contact the person in a car if needed, and even see details around an incident. A global manager view was included.
My Role:
I led the design from beginning to end, including determining the functionality of the demo, personally creating the overall design and wireframes, working together with a visual designer to create the visual designs, presenting to executives for approval, and working with developers who coded it – resolving issues which came up in development and noting and prioritizing what things needed to be corrected.
The Implemented Design:
The fleet manager can see the status of their vehicles in a categorized view, seeing within each vehicle type how many vehicles are in use, are available, and are out of service. They can also enter a future date to see this for an event coming up where they need vehicles.
Or they can switch to a map view, to see that same information paired with where the vehicles are. Vehicles with issues, such as out of fuel or in an accident, are highlighted with an attention bubble. Affordances at the top makes overall numbers still available.
The fleet manager can also click on specific issue types, such as Need Fuel, and vehicles with any level of that issue are shown, both the ones which are out of fuel and the ones just getting low on fuel. Similar features are provided for those needing service, in an accident, or out of the geofence (the area the vehicles should be in).
They can click on any of the vehicle dots on the map to see more information about any vehicle and trips it has taken. For example, you might see that DTCs began after an accident. One of the new ideas I added was to allow clicking also on the driver too, so if there is an accident, you can see if this is the first time, or one of several.
The Result:
This was shown along with another product I designed at oversaw simultaneously -- a Vehicle Health and Diagnostics Portal, receiving positive reviews from customers and the press at CES. This was especially gratifying given that we had just 3 months from project concept until the working demo products were shown together at CES.