XD
RObo
taxi
XD Robotaxi is an exploration into the user experience of hailing a ride in a subscription based autonomous taxi future. Jump forward in time 10 years, you can’t take a trip downtown without spotting people hopping aboard shuttle style autonomous vehicles moving people from point A to B. Shared robo taxi’s will transform the way we think about travel, all you need to think about is the destination. How can we design the best experience to easily pair riders with a shuttle?
UX.
Today when you hail a ride, you have a few ways of finding the vehicle. Ride-hailing apps show you vehicle photos, vehicle model information, driver photo, license plate numbers, as well as “beacons”- coloured LED lights on the vehicle that matches a coloured indicator shown in your app. Let’s take a few steps into the future. As the world transitions from individual ownership to subscription-style autonomous transport, we have an opportunity to rethink the way that riders interact with Av’s (autonomous vehicles). I wanted to explore a human approach, using colour and shapes.
Other advantages come with using images over type. Images/symbols tend to be easier to remember, and they don't need to be translated - that means one experience design that can be familiar world wide. All the symbols are designed to be as common as possible - so that voice assistant of the future could tell you that your assigned AV is "a square" or "two triangles." Shapes needed to be familiar to be spoken aloud when communicating with a virtual assistant.
RIDER Pairing
The Avex shape system uses its awareness of how many other AVs are around you to assign you a unique but familiar shape that isn't already in use nearby. This awareness means that when many AVs pick up passengers from an event or busy downtown, there's no chance of confusing your assigned AV with somebody else's.
Hail
a ride.
We will still have our phones in our pockets, but they will do most of the heavy lifting on their own, communicating directly with devices around us and predicting our behaviours.
The AV hailing system uses these "ride stops" for popular locations. These are proximity-based visual aids to the Avex user experience. When a user loiters nearby, their device will notify and confirm they need a lift. It could also provide a completely phone-less experience, with the ride stop pole assigning shapes to familiar passengers as they arrive using facial recognition.
Rider Privacy
Pairing symbols like the three rings seen here are only necessary visually when you're locating your AV. Once you pull away from your spot, the symbol can fade away. This also provides privacy familiar with ride-hailing or taxi services.
Retrospective: I look forward to exploring more concepts for efficient pairing of people & robotaxi’s
﹒Project completed 2020﹒