What drivers told us

Research conducted

We conducted in-person interviews with EV drivers at a mall location where ViaLynk chargers were installed, as well as with colleagues who regularly used the chargers. Several participants had used the app before and described frustration with locating stations, understanding availability, and relying on repeated zooming to find usable chargers.

Key Insight:

• Drivers primarily cared about availability first, not proximity

• Users wanted to know if a charger was usable before navigating

• Repeated zooming felt slow and stressful especially when low on charge

• Discovering unavailability late caused frustration

Why the previous design failed

The original map treated all stations equally and gave drivers no way to assess availability at a glance. As a station density increased, the map became harder to use by forcing users into slow, manual exploration.

Design Goal

Enable drivers to quickly identify available chargers nearby with minimal zooming, clear visual signals, and predictable interactions.

Key Design Decisions & Tradeoffs

Decision 1: Introduced color-coded availability

What changed

• Green pins represent available chargers

• Gray pins represented unavailable chargers

• Blue pins represent all chargers

Tradeoff

The pins prioritize availability over showing multiple attributes at once, deferring other details to filters and station views.

Why

Drivers needed to understand availability instantly, before interacting with the map.

Decision 2: Implemented clustering to manage density

What changed

• Stations group into clusters based on density

• Circular clusters represent grouped stations at more than one location

• Square clusters indicate the number of individual stations at a location

Tradeoff

Individual stations are hidden at higher zoom levels to keep the map readable.

Why

Showing every station at once made the map overwhelming and slowed decision-making.

Decision 3: Enabled progressive zoom through interaction

What changed

Tapping a cluster automatically zooms into individual stations.

Tradeoff

Less manual zoom control in exchange for faster access to detail.

Why

Drivers wanted speed over precision when scanning for availability.

Decision 4: Added filters and search bar

What changed

• Added a search bar for direct location lookup

• Added filters for available chargers, charging station levels, and free chargers

Tradeoff

Additional UI controls increased visual density on the map.

Why

Drivers wanted faster ways to narrow options without repeated zooming or trial-and-error.

The Before/After Experience

The redesigned flow eliminates exploratory zooming and reduces availability checks to a single step.

Validation

The redesigned map addressed the primary frustrations surfaced during in-person interviews. Drivers were able to identify available chargers faster and with fewer interactions, reducing unnecessary navigation and uncertainty.

Key Quote:

"This would've saved me so much stress last week when I was almost out of battery. I can actually see which stations are open without clicking on every single one." - Frequent ViaLynk User

Results & Impact

• Time to find charger: 2-3 min → 20-30 sec

• Filter adoption: 65%+ of map sessions

• Support tickets dropped significantly

• Taps reduced: 8-12 → 2-3

What this taught me

• Availability is the primary decision signal in EV charging, not proximity alone

• Map interfaces fail quickly without hierarchy and visual rules

• Designing zoom. clustering, and filtering together is more effective than treating them as separate features

Reflection

If I revisited this work, I'd test edge cases like extremely dense urban areas earlier to further refine clustering thresholds.