WeeMover App

Transporting Children in Autonomous Bus 🚌

Summary

WeeMover, a groundbreaking application engineered by KidMove, an acclaimed global transportation company, is designed to offer secure, dependable, and cost-effective transport solutions for children.
The app utilizes advanced autonomous driving technology and is tailored specifically for parents who find it challenging to manage their children's school or activity commutes due to time constraints.
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Background

The transportation of children is a task that requires a high level of safety and attention to detail. Currently, parents rely on various modes of transportation like cars, public transport, and school buses to get their children to school, extracurricular activities, and other events. However, there are several problems with traditional modes of transportation. For example, parents often do not have time to transport their children to school or other commitments, and while time is a big obstacle for many, there are also inherent risks associated with traditional modes of transportation, including human error, distracted driving, and accidents. Shared autonomous vehicles have the potential to provide a safer and more reliable transportation solution for children. Furthermore, shared autonomous vehicles promise to reduce traffic congestion, thus being more environmentally friendly.

Client & Design Brief

KidMove
KidMove is an internationally operating transport manufacturer and has engaged you to develop a speculative concept for what the user experience of an autonomous transport service for children may look like from the customer’s perspective. The user interface for parents to facilitate the children's transportation service plays a central part in that experience. KidMove has tasked you with developing a tool for parents to be able to organise pickup or drop-off for their children that values safety, security, and communication so that they trust and feel secure with KidMove transporting their children to and from home.

Reflection

Situation:
In the first semester of the Master's course (IDEA9105), our team was tasked by KidMove to develop an autonomous transportation app. The goal was to help parents manage their children's transportation efficiently, addressing safety, time constraints, and reliability.
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Task:
I was responsible for conducting secondary research to gather insights and designing the user interface for the mobile platform, aiming to create an intuitive, secure, and user-friendly app for parents.
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Action:
I conducted extensive secondary research on children transportation issues and user needs through online ethnography and competitor analysis. These insights were crucial for defining user personas and scenarios. For the mobile platform, I focused on creating a seamless user experience that enables parents to easily initiate, track, and manage their children's trips. This involved designing intuitive navigation, clear visual cues, and robust security features to ensure user trust and satisfaction.

Result:
The app design for three platforms was successfully completed, earning high praise from the tutor and achieving the highest mark. This experience enhanced my skills in user research, application design. The success of this project made me realize the importance of unifying style guide, conducting detailed research, holding regular meetings and sharing ideas with team members.

Research

This research delves into the current transportation methods of Australian school children, examining parental concerns and attitudes towards traditional and emerging solutions, with a focus on the potential of shared autonomous vehicles to enhance safety, reliability, and environmental sustainability in children's commutes.

Target Audience

Parents without time to pickup children
Families with multiple children need to transport (children of different ages, at different schools, and at different times)

Research

This research examines the modes of transportation used by Australian children for commuting to and from school, as well as parents' attitudes towards using geolocation devices to monitor their children's journeys. The study found that private cars are the most common mode of transportation, with 66% of primary school-aged children (5-13 years) and 46% of teenagers (13-18 years) traveling by car. Additionally, the use of geolocation devices is more prevalent among parents of teenagers compared to those of younger children. Many parents believe that tracking devices enhance their own and their children's sense of security, although some children prefer not to be tracked. Overall, parents remain significantly concerned about the safety of their children traveling independently, particularly due to the risks of traffic accidents and other unforeseen incidents.

Findings

Safety concerns heightened
Lack of professional equipment fails to provide enough assurance of safety, increasing parents' concerns about traffic accidents and prompt aid.

Communication challenges
Parents find it difficult to stay in touch with their kids because there is no good method for timely communication.

Customization and flexibility
For some families, having a variety of transportation alternatives is important, yet long commutes and traffic congestion present serious difficulties.

Resource management and affordability
Pressure on resource costs and service prices may put households under financial strain.

User Need

Design

User Flow

APP
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As the most widely used communication device in daily life, smartphones are not only indispensable tools for people's travel, but they also help us reach more users. The interaction system and voice chat functions of smartphones can provide users with more convenient booking operations and enhance the connection between children and users.