Creating connections between truckers and their families
Cabin establishes the sense of home and togetherness by introducing an interactive model home and truck that connects truckers and their families wherever they are. Truckers spend several weeks on the road away from their families. Staying in touch and conserving a strong sense of being together is difficult for both the trucker and their family. Cabin introduces a way to stay connected without all the hassle of connecting.
Team
Audrey Knutsen
Paper Prototype Designer
Collin Tran
Researcher and Prototype Designer
Emma Chen
Web Designer
Matt Hsieh
Editor
THE PROBLEM
The trucking industry is a 726 billion dollar industry that many companies depend on. An essential component to this industry is the truck drivers, or truckers. Despite the necessity of these individuals, truckers are a neglected group who can have less than desirable working conditions. They spend long hours (up to 80–100 hours a week!) alone driving freight across the country and spend significant amounts of time away from their homes and families. As a result, truckers need to manage their relationships on the road, making use of limited communication methods. In trying to make meaningful connections with their social network, truckers face obstacles like time zones, driving schedules and a large barrier of land in their way.
Our goal is to help truckers feel more connected with their families with better communication tools and methods.
USER RESEARCH
Users
In conducting our user research, our primary user was truckers. A secondary user was the families of truckers.
Research Methods
Ideally, we would have liked to utilize observational methods like participant observation or fly-on-the-wall observation for our research; however, the constraints of our project rendered these methods unrealistic, so we chose to do interviews and directed storytelling. These methods allowed us to engage with our users, gain insight in their needs and hear personal stories and experiences within a relatively short time frame.
In searching for research participants, Reddit was an efficient platform for finding participants. We posted questions to find truckers and family members of truckers and reached out to them individually to see if they would be interested in conducting an interview with us. We also gathered the responses to our questions on Reddit as a source of directed storytelling.
We conducted interviews with 3 trucker drivers with varying amounts of trucking experience (2 years, 8 years, 22 years) and different family/relationship statuses (single, married, divorced).
Results and Key Findings
The first reoccurring issue was the difficulty to communicate with family members back home. The trucking industry separates the driver from their family, making it hard to keep strong relationships. The first participant expresses this problem through her attempt to use social media platforms such as Snapchat to stay connected with friends; however, it was clear to her that this effort was not enough to preserve her friendships. The next participant stressed the joy of having a co-driver (his spouse), having someone physically there, that was missed once his spouse had to stay home with the kids. The last participant expressed that the difficulty to communicate was a large factor in the falling out of his marriage. It’s clear that being “virtually connected” with friends and family is not enough to satisfy our human needs to feel a part of family, but rather the conversations and the sense of home that fulfills this need.
This lead us to another theme that stood out in the interviews, which is the need for a sense of home. Drivers can spend weeks at a time on the road, and during this time they essentially just live out of their vehicles. The first participant explains that she keeps all her personal belongings in the truck. That is her home. Since truckers always on the move, it can be hard to have a consistent feeling of home when the only space they have is the inside of their cabin. Both our first and second participant tried to combat this by seeking companionship while driving, which usually meant calling their family or friends via headset or even discreetly video chatting. Our second participant also had their spouse as a co-driver to help combat the loneliness, and other drivers are known to get cats or other pets they can take on the road.
Our takeaway from these results is that we need to focus on two tasks: communicating with family and friends and gaining the comfort of passive connection.
INITIAL DESIGN
Our initial design had two parts. The first is a dynamic house ornament that truckers can put in their trucks. The house will react differently to various activities in their real house. For example, when someone is home and turns on the lights, that particular room in the model home will light up. The second part is a dynamic truck model for family and friends of the trucker to keep. Like the house, the truck will react in relation to the trucker’s actions. For example, if the trucker is driving, the wheels on the model will be rotating to appear as if the model is driving in place. If the trucker decides to install a dashboard camera, they can connect it to the model truck so that their friends and family can see what they are seeing while driving.
While drivers do want to connect with family and friends, current technologies that support these tasks, including FaceTime and Bluetooth headsets, take attention away from the road and are dangerous for truckers to take part in. Truckers may be in different time zones than their families, or having conflicting work schedules, making scheduling availability between the two may be strenuous and feel “forced”. The dynamic model house and truck passively create a sense of communication without having to actually physically talk or text. Through the reactive technology on the model truck and the lights turning on in the model home, both sides are informed on what the other side is up to.
As truckers frequently find themselves homesick while on the road, during the transition from a familiar home environment to a truck cabin, creating a sense of “home” would help offset some emotional discomfort and loneliness and make them feel connected to home. They often decorate their truck cabin with sentimental relics from home as dash or windshield ornaments to help them connect back home. A model replica of the driver’s actual physical home and of their truck would serve as a strong connection to home for both sides of the relationship that is emotional to each individual (as each model is specific house or truck), and include additional affordances like real-time reactive elements that establish an even stronger bond to home.
With this model home and truck, both parties gain the feeling similar to how people do not experience loneliness even if they are confined alone within a closed room in their house, so long as they know and can feel the presence of other family members, which helps create a connection between the trucker and their family, potentially improving their emotional states.
PAPER PROTOTYPE
Initial Paper Prototype:
Feedback and Revisions from Heuristic Evaluation:
Here are some of the key issues that were brought up in our heuristic evaluations, and the revisions we made:
How can the user distinguish between errors and system state? How can the user diagnose connectivity or battery issues?
- We designed the model to have a strip of error lights on the corner of the house/truck that indicates errors in connectivity or battery.
- An additional concern regarding power (whether or not the model is on) was mentioned, so we added a power status light, as well as a power button to use for rebooting.
When the trucker records their view for their family to see on the model truck, how do they know that the recording successfully made it to the model truck and was viewed by the family?
- We revised the house to have one room be assigned to be a status room. When a light is flickering it means the video is being sent. A light on means the video has not been viewed yet, and when the light turns off, it means the video has been viewed.
When the lights turn on in the truck or house, does that mean the family is actually available to chat with the other family member?
- To address this question, we added different colored lights to represent different settings, for example a yellow light means people are home, but a pink light means one side is available to talk, if both sides (the truck and home) light up to pink, then it is clear that they can call each other.
What if the trucker slams on their brakes and the model home flies off the dashboard and breaks? What if the house doesn’t sit flush on the dashboard, causing it to fall more easily?
- The house model comes with sticky strips on the bottom to attach to the dashboard. We can also add some sort of flexible padding underneath house that can contour to curves in dashboard, or create mounting bracket that can easily be installed.
The white color seems hard to clean. What if the trucker doesn’t like the white color of the house? What if the trucker doesn’t live in a house that looks like that, or lives in a condo?
- We can provide truckers with several options on how their house model will look and allow them to customize, including different color options.
USER TESTING
Recruitment Strategy
For user testing, our goal was to interview truckers and families of truckers. To find our target individuals, we reached out to friends and family to see if anyone knew any truckers. From there, we contacted one trucker and their family and received their approval to interview them. Due to the tight deadline and the difficulty to connect with truckers, we expanded our target audience to individuals who travel for long periods of time because they work in similar environments as truckers. We reached out to those we know that fall into that category, and found our last user in that process.
Testing Methods and Tasks
The first and second tests were conducted via video call using Skype due to lack of transportation to commute to the participants’ home. The first participant (P1), a trucker, was seated and asked to imagine himself as if he was in the cabin of the truck. The house model was placed in full view of the camera so the participant could see it. Participant 2 (P2) is one of P1’s three daughters, a 24-year-old woman, who grew up in a family dynamic where her father could not physically always be home, due to the nature of his occupation. We were able to show and explain the second component of our prototypes, the truck prototype. As P2 had first-hand experience knowing her father would not always be home and routinely called him on the road during his working hours, she was an ideal candidate to test our truck prototype. We used a hybrid approach that combined a formative testing approach and speaking out loud protocol. The reason for focusing mainly on a formative approach is due to the fact that our design is very passive, so we needed to test whether the user could perceive its affordances.
We conducted the third test in an SUV. We chose P3 due to his likeness to our user group — long distance truck drivers. These individuals are typically middle-aged men with children and spouses. We conducted our usability test in an SUV, as it is most similar to that of a truck, although much smaller. Our house ornament prototype was mounted to the SUV dashboard, and P3 was able to run through three tasks as a think-aloud protocol. We iterated on our house model from the usability test from P1, including dimming the light output of the house, and modifying instructions of use for “doorbell” button.
Revisions from Initial Paper Prototype:
House Model:
- Add power indicator light and button
- Add error lights: connectivity failure, light bulb failure.
- Make lights look colorless when no errors
- Two phase lighting system, so house isn’t too bright and distracting at night, but bright enough in the day time
- Have the door turn pink so trucker knows they were successful at letting family know they are available
- Add “Command strip- like attachments to bottom of model to prevent falling when breaking
- Have different models (condos, etc) and/or design options (black, other colors, etc)
- Install a small portable hard drive to store videos for time being until it can be sent
- As a fallback, the available lights shut off after 3 hours. If the family turns off all the house lights, the system will automatically, shut off the available lights.
- Have the garage be a status room. When a light is flickering, the video is being sent. A light on means that the video has not been viewed yet, and when the light turns off, the video has been viewed
Clicker:
- Push button one time again, door light turns off
- Push the button three times to record video and have video automatically record for 10 seconds
Truck:
- Add power indicator light
- Add error lights: connectivity failure, light bulb failure.
- The screen (windshield of truck) will blink when there is a video waiting.
- Install a small portable hard drive to store videos until video can be viewed
FINAL PROTOTYPE
Our final prototype consists of 3 pieces: a truck ornament, a house ornament, and a dashboard clicker.
Below is a summary of Cabin’s features:
House:
- House lights up yellow when lights turned on in real home
- House lights up pink when the family has indicated they are available
- House has portable hard drive to store videos if they cannot be sent immediately
- House has two lighting levels (dimmer one for dark environments). Automatically adjusts to surrounding environment
- House automatically turns pink lights to yellow after 3 hours of inactivity from family (in case they forgot to turn it off)
- Garage is the status room (Flickering light = video sending; light on = video sent but not viewed; lights off = video viewed, no video sent)
- Light panel: battery low light, error light, power button
Clicker:
- Click once = toggle trucker availability to family — clicker lights up when trucker is marked as available
- Click twice = call family
- Click thrice = record 10 seconds of video and automatically upload — clicker flashes when video is recording
Truck:
- Truck lights up when the trucker turns his/her lights on
- Truck lights up pink when the trucker is available
- Can indicate availability to trucker by pressing button on door (lights up when marked as available)
- Blinking LED on windshield indicates incoming video
- Long press on windshield to view video
- Light panel: battery low light, error light, power button/light
PROJECT RETROSPECT
Our Users
Our user research taught us that the demographic of “truckers” was extremely diverse, capturing people from numerous varying age groups, family and relationship statuses, and backgrounds. Despite this, the problems they faced in the workplace were often very similar. Because they live most weeks of the year away from home, our primary users consistently had issues maintaining a social connection with their friends or immediate family. It is human nature to seek companionship, but because of the nature of their work these people are extremely limited in their options to satisfy this feeling. Social media and other methods of electronic communication often proved an unsatisfactory substitute for the presence of loved ones nearby. This was the key issue we decided to tackle with our design.
Limitations
Because our primary users spend the vast majority of their waking hours driving, the biggest constraint that we had to tackle was safety on the road. We needed a way to provide a connection for our users without risking their lives by distracting them while they drive. This greatly limited our options for the types of features we could include in our design. Any idea for features requiring even a small amount of attentive action from the driver had to either be reworked in a way that it could be done passively, or discarded as being too compromising to safety.
Roadmap
Our current design is making great strides in giving drivers a way to connect with their homes and families, but there is still plenty of room for development and growth. As of now our design focuses on house owners, but we were considering moving forward with designs for apartments or other types of living quarters as well. Additionally, an accompanying app could be included to facilitate onboarding and error diagnosis, and help support a calling or video-chat function. We could also expand our design’s user base and make an iteration for people who live far apart, but who are not truck drivers. Such a design would have many more possibilities for features and extended functionality to explore. As it stands, our product gives long distance drivers a safe and comforting way to stay connected with their home, allowing them to passively communicate with families and providing a greater sense of companionship and meaningful connection.
