Context

The dodge vehicles were coming up to a refresh year, and customers were expecting new technology. The previous radios were small 4” screens with basic design. They were not reflective of the price point or customer expectations for the upcoming vehicle lines.

The ask

Develop and launch a refresh of the Uconnect radio interface. This design should be an 8.4” screen and span across the three vehicle lines (Charger, Challenger, 300), as well as be adaptable to other vehicles in the Jeep and Ram brands.

Current state

It had been several years since the last radio redesign. There were a few glaring issues with the current state.
1. Bloat
2. Confusing Hierarchy
3. Small screen with outdated visuals

Adapting to customers

Since this radio will be used across several vehicle lines, research was conducted to understand the needs of each brand's customers. Additionally, vehicle product teams hugely value their branding and need to set their products apart.

Dodge customers are everyday drivers looking for ease and basic vehicle information.

Ram customers are looking for work and utility information.

Jeep customers are looking for delight and off-road functionality.

Design goals

Taking into account the needs of the customer, as well as the internal stakeholders, I created a list of requirements for this project:

Users should be able to traverse and find the information they need in <5 steps

Alleviate large information by grounding customers and helping them for a mental model

Seamless integration between the native system and projection mode (Carplay/Android Auto)

Customization and flexible architecture to flex across product lines, and optimize for customer type

Flexible structure to allow for future updates, considering 10-year life of vehicles

Skin elements to create clear branding per product team

Design proposal

I designed the system to solve for each of the goals:

Familiarity
Use an app based system for deeper functions. Most customers are familiar with this model, it created a very low learning curve.

Shallow architecture
Customers can have their favorite apps on the first page or the bottom menu, for easy activation of functions they use often. Each app would go to a page for more customization or information, keeping the architecture flat.

Grounding
‍A bottom bar would always be available for easy access to the main sections of the radio (media, apps menus, etc.), as well as always having a home button. This would be the same in projection mode.

Test & Iterate

An early version of the design was released in order to clinic usability with customers. Results were very positive with a 91% task success rate.

“love this new radio, feels like a huge upgrade from my current one”

Feedback for change:
- Climate was important enough to users that they didn't appreciate it only being in the apps menu, and would like to be able to add it to the bottom bar
- Make bottom bar customizable

Deliver & Deploy

It was time to deliver the design to our partners to build. It went something like this:

Complete UX Specs:
Logic & User Flows, Max/Min space, Feature specs

Work with partners to close any gaps

Validate and test in vehicle