Portfolio #3 — Drive Buddy
Drive active, drive safe!
OBJECTIVE
Our application, Drive Buddy, is aimed at ensuring the safety of drivers by engaging them in funny cognitive tasks in order to keep them awake and alert behind the wheel. Our ideal customers are truck companies, other workers who need to drive long hours, as well as the occasional driver (e.g. when going home from a party).
This project was part as the StartupLab course offered by the University of Trento and Contamination Lab. In the final competition for the best startup idea, Drive Buddy reached the Top 10 among the 21 running projects !
APPROACH
After getting on board with Elisa’s idea, we formed our team and refined our idea through the Customer-Problem-Solution model from Lean Startup. We then ran a survey with a first version of the prototype with our potential customers, which helped us refine the product.
The second part of the project then focused on the final pitch and on the business model for our app, Drive Buddy.
MY ROLE
In this project, I curated the visuals (presentation, posters, fliers, etc.), the video editing and I designed the two versions of the prototype with Adobe Experience Design.
After the end of the project, I was then able to further develop the UX and UI of Drive Buddy as part of the course of Social Interaction.
THE TEAM
Elisa Guardabasso — Head of team and Work Psychology student
Matteo Grotto — Computer Science student
Giulia Bertuzzo — Economics student
Simone Sperindé — Innovation Management Student
Antonio Massaro — PhD in Computer Science
DURATION
February 2017 — June 2017
THE PROBLEM
Every year, in Italy, there are several car crashes. Of these, 1/5 are caused by sleepiness, a condition which has been lamented by 50% of the participants in our survey. The current measures for counteracting sleepiness, which range from passive alerts embedded in the car to extra cups of coffee, are not enough to counteract the issue.
THE CREATION PROCESS
At the beginning of StartUp lab, we were asked to pitch our ideas and to articulate using the Customer-Problem-Solution model. This was not only to define the idea better, but also to recruit team members. When Elisa first told me about her idea, we then proceeded to create a short video to find our future team.
As seen in the video, our pool of users ranges from truck drivers to workers to regular citizens; our user research focused mostly on the 3rd category.
One of our first step was validating the problem: after posting a survey on social media and interviewing our target users, it was clear that sleepiness behind the wheel was a widespread problem that needed to be solved.
In the following weeks, we iterated on a first flow for our prototype to display in a second video. The user should be able to:
1 Insert tiredness level and length of journey;
2 Get quiz questions during the journey that require only a vocal input;
3 End the journey and view their score in the game.
As our desk research showed, the cognitive stimulation — if not excessive — provided by the quiz can effectively improve alertness and suppress fatigue in drivers.
The result was this first prototype, featured in our second video.
The idea was very well received by the ones who completed our online survey. However, when presenting the video to our potential customers, our logo was rejected (more info here), which brought us to a complete re-branding of Drive Buddy.
THE FINAL DESIGN
After StartupLab I was able to improve the UX of the interface autonomously as part of the course of Social Interaction. To further develop the app concept, I looked more into gamification and added:
1 Leaderboards, to increse competition among users;
2 A badge system and secret achievements to increase engagement;
3 Social media sharing, to appeal to the socially-driven players;
Here is the presentation with the final result.
