On International Children’s Day, the automaker invited an international cohort of teens ages 13 to 19 to the Chevrolet Hack Lab for a day-long hack-a-thon. There, the kids split into teams and set out to devise original plans to combat distracted driving, with Chevy mentors there to assist.
The winning design, drawing talent from Dubai, Canada and the United States, leveraged “positive peer pressure” to intercept and deter drivers at the moment of distraction. We picked things up from there, and partnered with Chevy’s agency of record to transform the kids’ concept into a concrete product.
The mobile app “Call Me Out” enables users to pre-record personalized audio messages from friends and family. When the phone is in use while the accelerometer detects the vehicle is in motion, the user’s brother, mother, or best friend is virtually brought into the car to bring him/her to his/her senses.
Our UX team identified a number of different use cases that needed to be accommodated for including being a passenger in a moving vehicle or other mode of transportation, speed thresholds, etc. A series of fail safes were implemented both within the UI of the app and in the backend.
The user interface and branding were designed to visually reinforce peer-to-peer communication for a younger demographic. The brand wanted to leverage one of the most recognizable hand gestures for its main icon.
Our collaborative goal was design something that felt like Chevrolet but not TOO much like Chevrolet. We utilized Chevrolet’s core elements and innovatively applied them across creative for a flexible but cohesive experience.
And for those users motivated only by the addicting glory of a win, we implemented a ranking system complete with user statistics and a leaderboard. Users earn points for ignoring notifications and abstaining from phone usage while driving, and can compete with peers for gloating rights and safest driver.
Future versions will potentially include further gamification with platforms like Facebook, Waze and Google Maps, allowing for quicker adoption rates and convenient sharing.
In late 2018, Chevy released the final product to a roar of glowing praise. Since then, download counts have steadily climbed to over 10 thousand.