Kubota USA
My role: UI/UX Design, Product Design,Information Architecture, Creative Direction | Industry: Farm & Construction Equipment
Background
Kubota introduced its first tractor to the United States in 1969. Kubota now offers products in a wide variety of segments including lawn mowers, utility vehicles, construction equipment, agriculture tractors and hay equipment.
Design Challenge
The typical persona using this application is not always technical or has good cell service reception. Some parts of the data need to be stored locally on the users device. The parts finder required a lot of data to be shown so displaying that in a phone app required a heavy emphasis on UX.
Goal
Provide Kubota owners with manuals, features, and service needs outside of a papers manual or visiting a dealer.
Success Metrics
Low abandonment rate on the application and subsequent signin/signup and app use signaled acceptance of the application as valuable.
Research & Personas
At the time Kubota did not have a direct connection to end users as the traditional relationship is between the dealer and the customer. This was also true for the secondary market where people purchased Kubota equipment used from non Kubota sources. Having some touch point to these customers is considered valuable. In addition to this Kubota can make helpful content available to its customers and thereby enhancing their Kubota experience in a way similar to how the automakers engage with owners (myFord, myGMC, etc.)
Design Process
One of many pencil sketches to get the wireframe process started.
The first part of the design process was meeting with the my team members at Kubota Headquarters in Grapevine, Texas along with the technical leads at Kubota.
From there we gathered the product goals and users needs. The app needed to have a heavy emphasis on,
User manuals
Parts Finder
Personalized data
This low fidelity sketch (one of several) gave our team members a quick visual.
User Journey
The user journey and information architecture.
Testing
Testing was conducted with Kubota Dealers and Kubota Corporation via InVision. View the InVision Project.
