Case study

Smart - Ready To

Daimler Mobility Services set out to distinguish the Smart brand as a meaningful urban connected vehicle. The Ready To app translated that ambition into iOS and Android services around parking, charging, car location and theft recovery.

Client

Daimler Mobility Services

Country

Germany

Role

UX Consultant & Lead Designer

Released products

iOS app, Android app

Public stores

Apple App Store / Google Play

The challenge

Develop a set of meaningful features that increase loyalty among existing Smart owners and attract new prospects to choose Smart over a competitor vehicle, while meeting a six-month delivery window for the German market.

Constraints

The product needed to integrate with existing and upcoming Smart car models, manage telematics dependencies, reflect Smart brand guidelines and comply with German privacy regulations.

Discovery and ideation

I co-facilitated a two-day design thinking workshop with Daimler stakeholders from product, marketing and technical teams. Outcomes included personas, empathy maps, as-is journeys, user needs, prioritization, storyboards and first paper prototypes.

Agile delivery

Sprint 0 defined the broad user flow. I drafted wireframes, created a low-fidelity prototype, co-created the backlog and then designed high-fidelity iOS screens while supervising the Android design direction over the next eight sprints.

Usability testing

In the final month before release, I created roughly 10-12 tasks per major feature and tested with 10 participants aligned to the persona. Findings refined onboarding, first-time-use tooltips, option previews and gesture alternatives.

Solution

The delivered solution focused on four key urban driver needs: park, charge, spot my car and theft recovery. Native platform patterns helped the team build, test and improve fast while staying close to Smart's brand.

Results

More than five years after the first release, three of the developed features were still offered in later app versions: park, spot and theft recovery. The visual language evolved, but the core concept remained relevant.

Solution