Waymo
Google's self-driving company, Waymo, launched Let's Talk Autonomous Driving to help educate communities about the future of self-driving. It was time to tap even further into the community and help them educate us. This campaign began in San Francisco and is now launching in Pheonix and Austin.
Task
Design a campaign and survey landing page for San Francisco to encourage conversation surrounding self-driving.
Goals
Clearly communicate to the audience that they have a voice in the future of self-driving.
Increase subscribers and social media followers interested in self-driving
Team
Liviu Avasiloiei Art Direction, Animation
Ariana Velazquez Concept, Design, Illustration, Prototyping
Scroll down for full case study or jump to the product design.
research ~ TArget audiences
Targeting young techies, industry leaders, and millenial hipsters
We narrowed our target audiences to a few areas around San Francisco where awareness of technology in general, and self-driving cars specifically, is likely higher:
Mission
A highly diverse neighborhood of Hispanics, millennials, hipsters and techies
As a social and dining destination it draws in people from other parts of the city and beyond
SF Financial District
A smaller audience size, but a larger influence who lead technology companies
Wealthy, generally progressive and give to SF in the arts, community, and recreate around the latest innovations
Downtown San Francisco & Potrero Hill
Heavy concentrations of tech companies and younger, well-paid but cash-strapped residents
concepting - Visual Style
Making big tech feel human, communicating transparency
In the age where user data can be easily extracted and used for company gain, we wanted to be as clear as possible in our approach to visualizing the campaign and survey alike. We avoided an out of touch, heavily marketed approach by directly asking residents “What does ____ mean to you?” swapping out the blank area for a variety of transportation-related topics.
Executing - Visual Style
Creating a personal, custom-made experience with hand-drawn elements
Using the street view feature on Google Maps, I was able to source real first-person views of San Francisco to create my illustrations. This approach makes creating a customizable experience simple and possible for every city we launch in. These illustrations not only create a sense of familiarity for the audience but also help them better immerse themselves in the settings that the survey is asking about.
LAUNCHING - CAmpaign
Encouraging audience input with digital and out-of-home ads
We carried out our creative concepts in out-of-home and digital ads, driving users to the survey landing page. Understanding San Franciscans lead a busy life, we sought to capture their curiosity in a way that appealed to someone in a rush.
Out-of-home placements launched across San Francisco in October 2020.
Concepting ~ landing page
Prototyping an immersive self-driving survey experience
Implementing the simplicity and transparency of our creative into the survey experience tied directly into our goal to connect to a wider audience. We combined survey question slides with educational, illustration slides to guide the user through the survey and break up the content.
The basic user journey from question to scene featured a button that let you proceed once the question was answered. The button is always active on scenes for easy skipping.
user testing ~ revisions
Addressing content overload: Too many topics and too much survey
Users just don't have the time to respond to a long survey, let alone multiple versions. When launching San Francisco's survey, we discovered a pattern of receiving a disproportionate amount of responses in topic. We needed to evaluate how to better align with our initial consideration of time and streamline the survey experience.
Old Homepage ~ San Francisco, California
Dropdown menu presented too many options
Users were overwhelmed at the idea of a new set of questions per each topic, reducing participation
Revised Homepage ~ Austin, Texas
Questions were narrowed down to fit one general essay
Hand-written treatment on words was removed to streamline page design and allow more breathing room
San Francisco SURVEY
Old Survey Structure: 1 Scene Per Slide
Doubled the amount of clicks required to complete the survey, increasing risk of user fatigue resulting in clicking out
Frequency of the scenes made them less exciting, encouraging users to skip through them faster
austin SURVEY
Revised Survey Structure: 1 Scene Per 2 Slides minimum
New streamlined general survey had multi-part questions that should not be separated by scenes
Removing scene frequency by at least 25% and placing them after complex questions repositions them as pieces of instant gratification
conclusions ~ future imrprovements
Moving onto Austin and Phoenix
With the new survey better aligning to users needs, we will be able to customize the next few launches with ease and speed.
If I were to continue to improve upon the product, I might add an option where the user can toggle the scene settings entirely for an extra straightforward experience.
With that being said, I look forward to seeing how the survey performs and varies place to place.
