Background

I joined the Nuance Communications automotive design team as one of two UI designers to work on the redesign of the Entune and Enform mobile applications for Toyota and Lexus. These applications both connect via Bluetooth to the head units of the vehicles and allow users to map out a trip in advance while also being able to conduct various tasks relating to that trip, such as reserving a table at a restaurant or buying movie tickets. The Entune app connects to all Toyota vehicles while the Enform app connects to all Lexus vehicles. Each application has identical features but varies in branding and color palette and comes in both Android and iOS versions.

My Role

In my role at Nuance, I mainly designed the Android versions of the Entune and Enform applications, adhering as close as possible to Google’s Material Design standards. I received requirements from the UX research team and worked directly with the development team to implement my designs. To review designs and collaborate with other team members as well as external stakeholders, I created prototypes as well as attended design reviews on a weekly basis.

UX/UI Challenges and Solutions

We had to make UI updates to an app that had not been worked on in 10 years.

Since the Entune and Enform apps had not been worked on in a long time, it was impossible for us to simply do a UI refresh of its components one to one. We ended up working with the UX research team and external stakeholders to rework user flows based on updated technology, user needs and design standards.

We had to design a consistent UX across two applications with different branding and color palettes.

The Entune app used a color palette of grays, whites and reds while the Enform app used only black and white. We had to design a consistent UX using these very different color palettes that contained strong, bold colors. The Enform app was particularly challenging with its limited color palette of black and white.

We had to make a consistent UI across Android and iOS.

My colleague and I had to study the iOS and Android design standards extensively in order to redesign the Entune and Enform applications to ensure they adhered to those standards as well as had a consistent UX.

We had to be mindful of external app branding.

We had to ensure that we adhered to the branding guidelines for the external apps that Entune and Enform connected to, which were the following:

• Facebook

• Pandora

• iHeart Radio

• Slacker Radio

• OpenTable

• MovieTickets.com

We used each external app’s brand guidelines to make sure we were representing them appropriately.

User Interface Designs

In Summary

My position at Nuance was my first UI design position after completing my design education at DesignLab. In working on this project I gained experience in working on a design team within a large corporation and designing for an auto manufacturer on a mobile application. I increased my skill set in designing for iOS and Android mobile applications and with that, expanded my knowledge and expertise in Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines as well as Google’s Material Design standards. In working on these applications, I gained experience in collaborating with a UX research team in understanding application requirements and working with a development team to implement my designs. In attending design reviews with the team as well as with external stakeholders, I learned how to be an effective contributor as well as how to effectively defend my design decisions.