ElectraGo: Simplest way to charge your vehicle

The electric car market has experienced explosive growth recently, creating a pressing need for a user-friendly and accessible EV charging infrastructure. In this design study, we will explore how a mobile application can help improve the charging experience for the typical EV driver.

Challenge

ElectraGo was an internal project where we challenged ourselves to solve some of the typical issues an EV user faces.

Inability to find and locate nearby charging stations
Unavailability of connectors at the charging station
Lack of information and details about the charger
No access to data and history of previous sessions
Long wait times at the charging station

Solution

To address the challenges of electric vehicle (EV) charging, our team took a design thinking approach. This involved a series of steps, starting with the creation of user personas to represent the different types of EV drivers that might use our application. These personas helped us to understand the unique needs and pain points of each group, allowing us to design a solution that would meet their specific requirements.

Next, we mapped the user journey, looking at all the touchpoints and interactions involved in the EV charging process. This helped us to identify areas where we could improve the user experience and streamline the process of finding and accessing charging stations.

Finally, we created a design system for the application to follow. This system included guidelines for visual design, interaction design, and information architecture, ensuring a consistent and cohesive experience across all parts of the application. By following a well-defined design system, we were able to create an application that was both aesthetically pleasing and functional, meeting the needs of users while also ensuring a seamless and consistent experience.

How we did it?

Evaluation
The user personas and user journey mapping helped us identify pain points and design a solution that met the unique needs of each group of EV drivers.

Creation
We created a design system for the application to ensure a consistent and cohesive experience, covering visual design, interaction design, and information architecture.

Testing
The application was tested extensively to ensure it was both aesthetically pleasing and functional, meeting the needs of users while also ensuring a seamless and consistent experience.

Outcome

The outcome of the design study was a fully-featured, clickable prototype that is ready for implementation. By facilitating easy access to charging stations worldwide, a user-friendly app like ElectraGo would be a great step toward improving the EV charging experience. With the end-user always in focus, our team designed the app from the ground up, resulting in an approach that would work with any CPO and eMSP platform via standard protocols such as OCPI.