GM Energy Public Charging

General Motors' Public Charging initiative is facilitated through participating charging station operators using GM's native MyBrand app, covering their four core brands: Cadillac, GMC, Chevy, and Buick. In addition, GM collaborated with Tesla, enabling GM EV owners to charge via Tesla Superchargers with an affordable adapter.

In order to deliver maximum value, I led the team through four primary experience design deliverables—service design, conceptual design, usability testing, and feature prioritization. These deliverables were intended to guide the post-MVP experience and future state of the MyBrand suite of apps.

The primary objective of the engagement with General Motors was to deliver a service design component. This component involved delivering a comprehensive journey map and service blueprint along with analyzing business and user perspectives to identify gaps and insights for enhancing the overall experience across multiple channels. The secondary goal was to translate these actionable insights into tangible design and workflow improvements.

I led a team of experience professionals throughout the engagement, including UX designers, UI designers, and UX strategists, to align the future state of Public Charging within the MyBrand suite of apps and supplementary entry points such as websites and CRMs. This involved close collaboration with key decision-makers through a series of workshops, facilitating a deep understanding of the Public Charging ecosystem.

The strategy focused on prioritizing awareness of the free Public Charging tier, emphasizing the benefits of a paid membership, and building overall program awareness through supplementary channels such as other GM branded websites, marketing, and CRM opportunities.

This process uncovered over 60 unique conceptual feature-set opportunities to enhance the experience in both the near term and well into the future. Concept validation was conducted through a series of unmoderated usability tests, providing key takeaways and comprehensive insights and recommendations.

Project Deliverables

For the service design phase, our team delivered comprehensive journey maps and service blueprints, revealing new feature opportunities. A supplementary ecosystem map visually identified key user interactions. User personas were created to provide a detailed understanding of customer needs and uncover gaps and opportunities. A competitor audit, including both direct and out-of-category competitors, offered insights for strategic decision-making aligned with industry benchmarks, market trends, and user expectations.

The final deliverable of the first phase included carefully crafted recommendations for post-MVP functionality across multiple channels, considering customer value, ROI impact, and development effort. This led to a continued relationship with GM to begin implementing the team's design recommendations.