How BlackBuck integrated real-time Fuel Tracking with its GPS
BlackBuck Fuel Sensor User Experience Design: Part 2
Introduction
The previous part of this blog series discussed about what a Fuel Sensor is, what BlackBuck did as Phase I (Fuel Calculator Widget introduction in GPS flow) to understand how many users are willing to see fuel consumption digitally and are likely to buy a Fuel Sensor.
For better context, you can access Part 1 of this blog series here. A quick skim will suffice.
The Phase I of introducing a Fuel Calculator Widget in BlackBuck GPS yielded promising results, with as many as 12k+ out of 50k users manually setting mileage to track fuel consumption.
This provided valuable insights into the potential use case for Fuel Sensors and helped shape BlackBuck’s broader target and strategy.
Now the objective was to build a proper feature that would cater to the real-time fuel tracking needs of BlackBuck’s user base. This Blog will discuss in detail about how it was achieved.
Phase II Start — BlackBuck+Vamosys
In February 2024, BlackBuck partnered with Vamosys, a fuel sensor distributor, to sell and install fuel sensors to its user base. Vamosys provided its app and distribution network, while BlackBuck offered access to its network of truck owners as potential buyer
This partnership provided an initial user base of truck owners with activated fuel sensors on their trucks.
User Research & Competitor Benchmarking for Fuel Sensor
BlackBuck approached around 50 of such truck owners to understand:-
- Why users use Fuel Sensor
- How has the current solution helped them
- What are the issues they face with the current solution
Thus, user research (done via telephonic interviews) and simultaneously, other apps’ benchmarking was also initiated to gain insights wrt the above points.
User Interviews — Round 1
Post the telephonic interviews, key questions were asked to users around the above three points and then inferences were derived from thier feedbacks.
These insights helped us get a clarity on what features should be present prominently within the fuel tracking experience for the users.
Competitor Benchmarking
Benchmarking was conducted with four other apps to compare key features for user fuel tracking needs.
From the benchmarking, it was known that most of the competitors were covering the key areas addressing to the users fuel tracking needs.
However, the cluttered UI for FOs was a common issue across most apps, identified as a key area for improvement. Another overlooked area was viewing past fuel trends and graphs.
Past Fuel trends in competitor apps were not shown in an easily consumable fashion for truck owners, with the visuals provided looking complicated for our user base
User Interviews — Round 2
To validate this fuel trend problem found, another set of interviews were done to find out answers related to graph view of fuel tracking info.
These insights, hence helped us in validating the areas where we can give an improvised experience from our competitors
All the necessary Fuel Tracking details should be given to the user in a clean, simple and easily consumable fashion along with the basic Fuel Tracking detail provision. The gateway to the past trends itself shall also be easily discoverable.
Step towards Final Design
With the clarity gained on what to design, a user flow was made with the key pages involved and the changes that will be getting implemented within those pages
Following the user flow, design iterations were made on each main component to proceed with the final design
Final Design
Finally, all the final iterations were assembled together in a singular flow
Final Results & Conclusion
The Fuel Sensor experience has seen strong adoption since its launch in late May 2024, with 153 devices activated and 166 new orders confirmed by July, and an installation rate of 3.89/day in June-July.
This success is attributed to the app’s user-friendly design and the real-time fuel data provided, which has boosted customer trust and increased sales. This project also highlights the importance of a well-designed installation and repair process, to be discussed further in Part 3 of this blog series.
Overall, this project demonstrated the impact of data-driven UX design in driving revenue and provided valuable UX/UI insights.
User Feedbacks and Future Scope
One month after the new design release, we surveyed 20+ active Fuel Sensor users to gauge their perceptions.
- The primary focus was on feedback regarding the sensor’s accuracy in detecting fuel levels, refuelling, and fuel theft.
- Secondary feedback covered notification timings, graph usage, and suggestions for improvements.
Acknowledgement
I wholeheartedly thank my Product Manager in charge of this project, Utkarsha Chandra, for her visionary guidance and expertise on this project.
A big thanks to my fellow Designer, Abhishek Sharma, for the efforts made on the design and research on this project.
Big thanks to our UX Researcher Geethanjali R & Roma Mandpe, for their expert communication in conducting interviews & their help in insight generation post interviews.
Finally, I would like to thank my Product Category Head, Karteek Narumanchi for his key guidance on this project.
