How Safe Is Your Car
Empowering Road Users with Safer Car Choices
Highlights
The existing "How Safe Is Your Car" digital service failed to streamline complex safety data and effectively communicate it to users. Additionally, its tight integration with core systems created hurdles for updates and personalisation.
Extensive user research drove our human-centered design approach, ensuring an intuitive, educational, and clear user experience. By adopting a composable tech stack, including a headless CMS for flexible content delivery, middleware to handle complex logic, and Algolia for superior search capabilities, alongside external APIs ensuring real-time data precision, we transformed the technical architecture. This approach not only enhanced usability but also future-proofed the system for ongoing adaptation and growth.
Introduction
Crafting a safer ride
In collaboration with Inlight, The Transport Accident Commission (TAC) embarked on a comprehensive redesign of the "How Safe Is Your Car" digital service. The solution aimed to simplify technical information, provide personalised safety insights, and enable informed vehicle choices. Extensive user research formed the foundation, helping us understand user preferences and pain points.
The Challenge
Navigating road safety complexity
If everyone could drive the safest car in each category (e.g. hatchbacks, sedans, SUVs), road deaths and serious injury would drop by an estimated 26%.
The Transport Accident Commission (TAC) embarked on a mission to transform road safety through informed decisions. With the vision of zero road deaths, they recognised the crucial role of educating road users about vehicle safety. The existing "How Safe Is Your Car" digital service faced challenges in consolidating complex safety data and presenting it in an informative manner. Additionally, the service's integration with core systems hindered updates and personalisation.
The Solution
User-centric excellence
To truly empower users with a service that resonated, extensive user research was essential. With a focus on human-centred design, we embarked on a comprehensive exploration of user needs, preferences, and behaviours. This exploration was critical to informing our solution, ensuring every design and development decision was made with the user's perspective.
Thoughtful UX and design were the pillars on which we crafted a seamless experience. Every element, from the user interface to the information layout, was carefully tailored to facilitate easy comprehension. The challenge was not merely about data presentation but also about transforming complexity into clarity, enabling users to navigate intricate safety data effortlessly.
The UI design underwent meticulous iteration and refinement, driven by continuous user feedback and testing. The goal was to create a platform where every interaction was intuitive, every piece of information was digestible, and every journey provided educational value. The result was an interface that not only presented complex data effectively but also guided users towards their goals.
Better performance through a composable architecture
To take 'How Safe Is Your Car' to the next level, we comprehensively revised its technical architecture, embracing a composable approach. By adopting a headless CMS, we gained the flexibility to make quick updates without altering the core system. Adding a middleware layer enabled intricate logic handling, orchestrating a seamless interaction between various data sources and components. Algolia's advanced search technology played a crucial role, providing users with fast, accurate information, thereby elevating the overall user experience. We integrated external APIs to ensure real-time data accuracy, offering users access to the most current and relevant vehicle safety data.
The result
Empowering users, elevating road safety
- Return visitation to the website increased from 79% in 2019 to an impressive 90% in 2022, highlighting user satisfaction.
- The service's redevelopment triggered a significant positive shift in user sentiment towards aesthetics and the overall user experience.
- The project's efficacy aligned seamlessly with TAC's mission of promoting road safety by empowering users with accessible and comprehensible vehicle safety insights.
- The project's outstanding contribution to road safety and user experience was acknowledged with the prestigious Good Design Award, further underscoring its significance
