Solution Onboarding was a project at Volvo Construction Equipment focused on exploring the adoption of semi-automatic functions in wheel loaders by novice operators, measuring user engagement, efficiency, and the challenges of transitioning from manual control to shared control.
Solution Onboarding was a project at Volvo Construction Equipment focused on exploring the adoption of semi-automatic functions in wheel loaders by novice operators, measuring user engagement, efficiency, and the challenges of transitioning from manual control to shared control.
Overview: In this context, incentives are more important than value, practical approaches work best to change behavior, and simply discovering that the functions exist can be enough to shift user behavior.
Role: UX Researcher, UX/UI designer
Toolkit: Figma, Adobe Illustrator FigJam, Pencil and Paper, Co-creation
Introduction
Target Group & Product
The primary users are heavy-machine operators with three years of experience from academic projects and internships, but without full-time professional experience.
When novice operators sees the benefits and understands how something is used – the attitude and behavior changes. The solution onboarding product intuitively guides the user through only four short steps: locating the function, understanding its benefits, learning how to use it, and finally activating it. This helps save time, shift behaviour and become more productive at work.
Business Goal:
The business goal for the project was to increase the usage of semi-automatic functions inside the wheel loaders.
The Discovery & Define Phase
The project started with discovering the user behaviour and backgrounds. Utilising contextual inquiry as a starting method to gather data in a short time frame by being inside the cabin with the operator while they are working.
- Together with six novice operators with similar experiences of operating wheel loaders, each one practiced short loading cycle first completely manual (no automation) and once finished, with semi-automatic (with automation)
- Together with two experienced operators I had the opportunity to ask questions regarding usage of semi-automation in their day-to-day work seeing where and why it is used.
Semi-structured Interviews
The interviews were conducted with operator trainers who work directly with onboarding operators of varying backgrounds. They explore effective training methods in onboarding operators to new machine systems, focusing on practical skills in machine utilization.
So what are the findings?
Results from the contextual inquiry, interviews and survey revealed the following:
- It is difficult to see in what context I should use them
- It is more important what I gain in time, money and productivity by changing my way of working.
- It will be challenging to change the behaviour
Develop & Delivery Phase
The first concept
The design phase started with a ideation workshop, facilitated by me and included five colleagues. The aim was on generating a variety of ideas quickly through collaborative brainstorming and creative activities. Fun and interactive techniques such as starbursting, scenario-based brainwriting, and Crazy 8 sketching were utilized to flesh out quick and dirty solutions to the problem at hand. Asking ourselves questions such as who, what, why, where, when and how and placing ourselves in a scenario
“You are a wheel loader operator who needs to change your way of working because the boss wants all employees to reduce fuel consumption and increase productivity. If you had free rein in various solutions to learn quickly and effectively – how would you like to learn?”
User testing
The first digital prototype was tested alongside five novice operators. The focus for the first round of user tests was to test a push-notification that would invite the player to spot the tutorial. During their work, a push notification was prompted on the tablet using a keyboard to demonstrate the real product.
- The push notification was a flop. It was difficult to discover during the work task.
- While working the user does not look at the display unless it makes a sound.
- Push notifications are annoying and should only show when something is critical
The push notification was scrapped, all the images were changed to higher quality images and improved pictograms, the hand element covering the button icon was removed as the users relied a lot on the icon itself on the button.
White mode vs. Black mode
During the tests we noticed a difficulty in viewing the dark themed prototype in certain lighting which made the users job more difficult, essentially ignoring the display. For the next iteration we therefore enabled the ability to switch between light and dark mode for better visibility.
Information aspects
After testing the light mode prototype, results showed that
- Users rely a lot more on images than we first anticipated. Essentially making mistakes when interacting with the design because of unclear images.
- Too much text won’t be read by the user, especially not in such a high-pace environment like in heavy-machine operations. A common behaviour from every user was to skip towards the end, then go back to step one to start reading.
Final Design Proposal
Some takeaways (no.. not that kind of takeaway)
Never underestimate the importance of understanding user interaction patterns. During this project, I observed that many users interacted with the tool in a similar manner. Not the classic left to right, or right to left. When I asked about this, they were unable to pinpoint why—it was simply the way they worked. This behavior, I realized, was likely a reflection of the fast-paced, efficiency-driven nature of the industry they were in, where productivity and efficiency is key. Recognizing these patterns early on can provide valuable insights into user behavior and needs and how we should ask our questions, conduct our tests and also design our products.
Secondly, I’ve learned that workshops that are fun = productive. When workshops are fun and dynamic, participants are more productive and creative. With a skilled facilitator and clear goals, workshops become amazing tools. I must admit, I’m a bit of a sucker for workshops!
