Cruise

A gamified app that educates current drivers on the best ways to counter driving anxiety and provides the foundation to drive confidently.

Project

Academic

Timeline

4 months

Role

UX Researcher, UI Designer

Team

Figma, Miro, Adobe Illustrator

Overview

Prompt

Driving anxiety is intense distress experienced while driving and participating in avoidance behaviors. It can have intense consequences, such as limited job opportunities and physical health effects. Cruise suggests goals attuned to an existing driver's specific needs, and provides a plan to follow to gradually separate the user's anxiety from a driving scenario.

Initial Research

Background Research

Research Goals

Discover what exactly driving anxiety is, and how it affects the mindset of drivers.
Learn common behaviors associated with it and how driving anxiety affects individuals specifically.
What tactics/mental shifts can be utilized to solve the problem.
How users feel about driving in general

Discover what exactly driving anxiety is, and how it affects the mindset of drivers.
Learn common behaviors associated with it and how driving anxiety affects individuals specifically.
What tactics/mental shifts can be utilized to solve the problem.
How users feel about driving in general

Research 1 - Literature Review

Findings:

Overcoming driving anxiety requires going through exposure, which is the process of unlearning the connection between anxiety and a situation.

Affected individuals are encouraged to create a hierarchy, or a list of steps to take to help them practice exposure.

Anticipatory anxiety significantly contributes to driving anxiety, often causing people to avoid certain driving scenarios.

The proper response to anticipatory anxiety is taking a mental shift to observe inner feelings of anxiety and proceed to action.

User Interview

Interviews & Surveys

I created an interview guide to facilitate interviews, and interviewed five different individuals and used empathy maps to code the data, with sections on what the participant says, thinks, does, and how they feel. I later used affinity diagramming to sort the data by similar findings. I supplemented my qualitative research with quantitative research through a survey, in which I got 19 responses. This led to new driver insights.

Drivers are constantly fearful of events that never happen.
With every trip, drivers anticipate various road catastrophes. However, these events never actually occur while on the road.

They avoid situations that increase their anxiety, which reinforces those fears.

When a situation worries them, drivers avoid engaging with it. And when they do, they do so begrudgingly and they show symptoms of anxiety.

They underestimate the seriousness of their driving anxiety.

Despite recognizing the personal impact, they view their anxiety as something they "must endure" and haven't considered seeking help.

Drivers falsely believe that preparatory behaviors, like researching their route beforehand, reduce their anxiety.

In reality, these techniques only provide short-term relief, and their anxiety eventually returns.

Defining & Ideation

Personas

How Might We Questions

• How might we educate drivers on ways to feel safe and secure?

• How might we empower drivers to feel confident driving in a variety of situations?

• How might we educate drivers on the best thinking patterns for driving with ease?

• How might we educate drivers on ways to feel safe and secure?

• How might we empower drivers to feel confident driving in a variety of situations?

• How might we educate drivers on the best thinking patterns for driving with ease?

Ideation

I began ideating a solution to our problem using the Crazy 8's method: a design sprint method which involved creating 8 distinct ideas in a limited amount of time to solve the problem at hand. I ultimately landed on my final idea

But why an app?

Not only are apps easy to use because they are on a phone, but users are more likely to use it rather than other techniques. Considering many interviewees and survey participants don't believe driving anxiety impacts their life quality (when data shows differently), a gamified solution that requires less effort is more likely to be utilized.

Prototyping

Wireframes

Usability Testing/Iterative Design

Beginning usability testing in the mid-fidelity stage, I asked users to complete tasks including onboarding and pre-mission completion. My biggest improvements included enhancing my design's intuitiveness by adding additional UI buttons. For instance, in the first photo, adding a greyed-out "Continue" button helped participants better understand a task needed completion before proceeding.

High-fidelity Design

Key Features

Pre-missions - bite-sized, interactive articles to educate drivers on new thinking patterns to combat their anxiety at the source.

Progress & badges - motivation for drivers to continue on their journey. They can see how far they've come, and collect badges as they complete in-app tasks.

Final Prototype

Reflection

Final Thoughts + Next Steps

This was the first time I did such a thorough literature review, which took much longer than expected. However, doing such a thorough review allowed me to truly understand how anticipatory anxiety and avoidance behaviors work, and how to best help users. In the future, I plan to add:
• Accessibility features to make the product more inclusive
• Implement Flat Design 2.0 standards to improve accessibility