ZBoard

Stakeholder Interview

Before beginning our research, we held a stakeholder interview with Ben Forman, co-founder of ZBoard, to understand the company's goals and objectives for this app.

We discussed business goals and objectives as well as cornerstone features that he would like to see incorporated into the app. They are as follows:

1.
Extend board functionality to the app

Migrating some of the proprietary hardware functions to the app will lower production costs and get more ZBoards in more users' hands.

2.
Increase Community Engagement

Generating more buzz about the ZBoard will help drive sales and increase visibility across all channels of the electric skateboarding community.

3.
Metrics at a Glance

By providing users with data from the board, they can see critical information such as battery levels and share personal milestones such as lifetime miles traveled

User Surveys

To get a better understanding of the electric skateboarding community as a whole, we created a survey focusing on the following:

• Age/gender demographics
• Pain points
• Primary use cases
• Previous boarding experience (skateboarding, snowboarding)
• Social media usage/platform visibility

We reached out to various communities such as /r/ElectricSkateboarding on Reddit, the Boosted Board Facebook groups, and the Evolve electric skateboarding community with this survey and received over 150 responses.

Our client also provided some historical survey data for the ZBoard when it was in beta testing. This survey included over 120 responses from ZBoard owners and the questions were targeted specifically for them.

Survey Insights

From the surveys we found the most common pain points:

• Battery/Range: ZBoard users can't get an accurate gauge on how much range they have left for their current charge.
• Board Maintenance/Troubleshooting: All technical support goes through a single person, so there are often users who can't get the help they need in a prompt fashion
• Weather-dependent: The lack of waterproofing prevents users from using the board during or immediately following any rain.

The most common positive responses were:

• Fun, freedom: Gamification can add an element of fun to riding the board as well as increase user/community engagement, which is a business goal
• Quick and easy: Most functions should be able to be accomplished very quickly, shallow interactions
• High speed: Similar to the point above, ideally users are not on the app for very long, and the app should not slow them down

For electric skateboards that had a companion app, the most used features were:

User Persona

During our stakeholder interview, our client mentioned that there were typically two types of users of the ZBoard: the daily commuter and the weekend warrior. Through our surveys, we were able to validate this claim.

We found that around 61% of electric skateboard users would ride on a daily basis and 34% would ride at least once per week. Around 54% would both ride recreationally and to commute to work/school, 16% would only use the board to commute, and 28% would only ride recreationally.

Brent Jones - Daily Commuter

29 Years Old
Digital Marketing Coordinator
Santa Monica, CA
Primary Use: Commute to work

Will Larson - Weekend Warrior

34 Years Old
Senior Technology Technician
Hermosa Beach, CA
Primary Use: Riding on the boardwalk, running errands

Competitive and Comparative Analysis

Only recently with the advent of crowdfunding tools such as Kickstarter and developments in battery technology, have electric skateboards become more prominent in the mainstream. Many enthusiasts own multiple boards with some even modding or building their own.

We conducted a C&C analysis with competing brands as a whole, considering factors such as hardware, community engagement, implementation of a companion app, and user task flows.

Key Points:

1. ZBoard has the highest range in the market currently, with 16-24 miles on a single charge compared to 6-7 miles for the competition.
2. Most powerful electric boards still hover around the $1199-$1499 range, so users have an expectation of high quality and helpful customer service.
3. Compared to ZBoard, other competitors have 10 times the social interaction across different social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

Some of the major brands of electric skateboards also have companion apps, so we also compared these to get a glimpse of how they addressed user needs.

We looked at the apps for Boosted Board, Onewheel, and Acton.

Boosted Board

Primary Functions

• Battery Life
• Ride Mode
• Estimated Range
• Featured Ride Locations
• Firmware Updates

iOS Only

Onewheel

Primary Functions

• Speed
• Trip Miles
• Lifetime Miles
• Regen/Range/Usage
• Featured Location
• Leaderboard
• Shop
• Board Settings

iOS and Android

Acton

Primary Functions

• Dashboard
• Weekly Challenge
• Trips
• Explore
• Leaderboard
• About Usage/Lifetime Miles

iOS and Android

Common Threads

We approached our design by first looking at the information we gathered from the whole electric skateboarding community. Afterwards, we considered targeted solutions to specific ZBoard problems to implement into our design.

Across the spectrum of electric skateboards, there are some recurring variables that affect user experience:

• Battery Life
• Maintenance
• Range
• Distance Tracking

There are also some unique variables only offered by a few boards:

• Leaderboards/Gamification
• Shop
• Ride Mode
• Social Media Presence
• Riding Locations
• Tutorials

Lastly, the ZBoard-specific issues:

• Board maintenance/reliability
• Customer service

Feature Prioritization

Armed with the information above and the takeaways from our research, we categorized features into “Must Have”, “Should Have”, “Could Have”, and “Won’t Have”.

Must Have

1. Rider Dashboard
2. Odometer
3. Trip Distance
4. Battery and Range

Should Have

1. Speed Modes
2. Maintenance
3. Troubleshooting
4. Onboarding
5. Battery Status

Could Have

1. Sensitivity Customization
2. Customer Service Contact
3. Headlight/Taillight Control
4. Account
5. Board Tutorials
6. Leaderboard
7. Gamification
8. Spare Part Ordering

Won't Have

1. Riding Locations
2. Lock/Unlock
3. Part Malfunction Notification
4. Find My Board

The "Must Have" features are far and away the most commonly used by current board owners—these make up the MVP.

The "Should Have" features include ZBoard specific functions and issues such as speed mode adjustment, and troubleshooting

The "Could Have" features provide another level of control on the Should Have features (sensitivity adjustment, customer support), as well as some community engagement tools such as leaderboard and gamification. Users did not find these as vital to their experience, but they were topics discussed in our stakeholder interview.

Lastly, the "Won’t Have" features are items that users simply did not care about (Riding Locations), or exceed the limitations of the hardware (Part malfunction and Find my Board).

I created low-fidelity wireframes for the four main navigation items: Dashboard, My Board, Leaderboard, and Support.

Dashboard

The Dashboard has the most iterations and screens since it had to be both intuitive at a glance and provide quick access to the most important features.

The screens with the green border were chosen for further iteration.

1st Iteration

2nd Iteration

Final Iteration

This last iteration illustrates a short user flow of switching between riding modes. The user taps the current ride mode to bring up all available ride modes, selects a new one to see the updated range, and confirms the selection.

My Board | Leaderboard | Support

From left to right are the screens for My Board, Leaderboard, Achievements, and Support. Note that the My Board page was originally a design for the Dashboard.

The following are the high-fidelity mockups of the same screens shown above, and more.

Dashboard

My Board

Leaderboard

Support

Scenario 1

Brent is about to go to work, but he realizes that he forgot to charge his ZBoard last night. He needs to know if he can make it to work. When he opens the ZBoard app, he sees that he doesn't have enough battery. However, he can switch to the "Normal" speed mode and get enough range to make it to work.

Scenario 2

After he gets to work he receives a notification that his belts need to be replaced. He taps the notification and orders the belt through the ZBoard app.

Scenario 3

Weeks later the part arrives in the mail but he isn't sure how to replace it. Brent opens up the ZBoard app and goes to the troubleshooting section to learn more about belt replacement.