INTRODUCTION
The JumpStart Charging app allows you to easily find and reserve phone charging stations, giving you access to locations across Austin, so you never have to run out of battery again.
MY ROLE
As product design lead, I conducted the research from start to finish by recruiting testers, creating questionnaires, conducting interviews, analyzing/ presenting results through experience maps, and producing high fidelity mock ups/prototypes all while being a main point of contact for the client.
THE CHALLENGE
Assist night goers caught in a bind with a dying phone by helping them locate the closest public charging station and ensuring that it will be available once they get there.
THE PROBLEM
Dying phones are a problem that everyone deals with when they leave their charger at home. Although there are some venues and businesses in Austin that offer people a way to charge up, they require them to lock away their phones when they might need to use it most. Plus they have no way of knowing if these charging lockers will have any availability, leaving them with a dead phone while they wait for a spot to open up.
THE SOLUTION
RESEARCH
Since we were working alongside a hardware team, I began researching what current competitors were doing successfully and what we could do differently to improve the experience.
Once we decided on how the hardware would look and function, we created a prototype of the hardware to use for field testing. We set up the prototype at a bar on 6th Street to test how well people responded to it, as well as see how much they were willing to pay to charge by varying the price throughout the night.
Lastly I created a prototype of the reservation flow to test how well users were able to maneuver through it.
DESIGN
Based on the research findings, the key features we decided to focus on for V1 was the reservation feature. V2 would allow users to view a venue’s events and specials, plus have the option to upgrade their charging experience by paying a small fee for a faster charge.
Since the target audience is late night bar attendees, I went with a dark color scheme so that it would be easier on their eyes in darker settings. I also provided users the ability to lower the screen brightness in order to conserve battery while using the app.
In case their phone is about to die, users are able to text a code to a friend for them to unlock their reservation for them. The friend can then unlock the reserved port by entering in the code they received via the “Unlock Reservation” option in the settings menu.
