Ari Salomon | DriveSense watchOS

The problem: DriveSense is a program that allowed Esurance to monitor driving habits of our customers. This initiative allowed Esurance to monitor driver habits by installing a tracker in their car. By examining driving habits, Esurance would collect driver information such as speed, distance traveled, braking rates, and location of vehicle. We collected this information to understand the true details behind drivers. The incentive for this was that if the customers were safe drivers, they would receive a discount each month.

This program required people to install a device in their own car which often frustrated and disrupted trust. We were tasked to create a watchOS application that would pair with an iPhone application to replace the tracker. Users truly disliked the tracker device and preferred an application which they could download from an app store. The watch application would inform users of their driving habits and let them know how close they were to getting a discount. Once an iPhone application was designed and developed, users wanted to monitor their habits without looking at their phones. Thus a watchOS application was needed and concerted

Below are some mockups from the DriveSense watchOS application:

The Goal

My goal was to create an application for the newly release Apple Watch using their current best practices and technology. We wanted to summarize the high points of the current iPhone application without getting every detail into our watch interface. Our highlights included the most important information.

The Process

Like any other project, this one started with brainstorming which functionality we wanted in the watchOS application. We partnered with development to let them know which components we wanted and what functionality was possible. It was important to do this as much of the capabilities we wanted to put in were not possible due to technical limitations of the watch..

I then created an information architecture based on the best practices. There was a lot to learn as the Apple Watch was a just released. The scheme worked well as I summarized simple and basic features.

I used existing visual language and design from our current iPhone application mixed with best practices for the watch. User research was conducted to find any confusion their may be to existing DriveSense users. After two rounds of usability research, a final application was created.

The Solution

Our solution was to strip out unecesary functionality that exists in the already used iPhone application and to just have high level details put into the watchOS application. The high level details included was a summary of past driving habits, a summary of this current month's driving habits, a history of the user's last five car rides, the ability to manage car rides, and visual cues letting the driver know if they had been driving safely or dangerously.

The Results

This ending is not happy. Once the project was presented to our CMO, it was given the green light for development. However shortly into the development process, the project was deemed unnecessary due to the lack of current Apple Watch users. It was tabled and was supposed to be released. Unfortunately it never was..