Hum: Driver Safety

One of the main value propositions for Hum customers is safety. Hum provides several safety features, like roadside assistance, crash assistance, and vehicle location. The features are wide-ranging, but that also meant that we needed to dedicate focus to understanding each possible customer motivation for using these features within their own contexts.

“The Crash is Not Just the Crash”: Using Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience in UX Research

The premier Hum safety feature that comes to mind is crash assistance. Our UX Research team wanted to understand what context our users were in when needing this type of assistance. This would be key to understanding how Hum could be of help. We ran a series of in-depth interviews with people who had been through a car crash. We had so many hypotheses about what features and functionalities would be useful to someone in need. But what we kept hearing was: “The crash is not just the crash.”

What did that mean?

Well, first, all of these individuals had been through something incredibly traumatizing. As they described what they remembered thinking, feeling, and seeing — as well as how they couldn’t remember certain things about the crash — we garnered empathy for the frame of mind that they were in.

Here was one way my background in psychology could contribute uniquely to understanding this experience.

First, my background in cognitive neuroscience started to come into the conversation. When hearing people talk about these fragmented, non-linear descriptions of the actual moments after impact, I couldn’t help but see a parallel to Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome.

Here is an example of the graph that we conceptualized to help our Product R&D team understand those states of mind:

I also found myself leaning into my clinical counseling toolbox when hearing people sharing such sensitive and traumatic experiences. We learned that in addition to the initial harrowing experience of the crash itself, people were being affected by so many other factors in the time since.

“Luz” (name changed to protect anonymity) shared an insight that many also had. She now had an inherent worldview that she was a “bad driver”.

Prior to the accident, “Luz” had not necessarily considered herself to be a “bad driver”. Though she certainly brought some factors to the accident (being drowsy, driving at night), there were other factors that were also out of her control (a tractor trailer was jutting out from the shoulder of an off-ramp).

This shows how people derive meaning from actions and consequences, something that is part of the cognitive triad structure of one’s view of self.

There were all of these lingering biopsychosocial factors that surrounded the events of the crash, and many of those individuals were still in the middle of processing and addressing those factors. We decided to map these biopsychosocial factors according to the General Adaptation Syndrome time frame in order to help build a timeline of the entire personal experience.

After we uncovered this theme to our research, more stories started pouring in.

One person talked about how they were so busy with following up on physical therapy in the months that followed that they hadn’t followed up with law enforcement on the status or location of the vehicle; they lamented losing valuable items, like a treasured cassette tape from their father.

Another spoke of how their job was impacted. Without a consistent ride to the office, they had to rethink their work options altogether. And in many instances, people shared that they were still processing the accident. Some individuals had even stopped driving altogether because of those events.

This started to shape a turning point past the project itself, and in my own perception of the power of UX Research as a practice.

A Shift in the Conversation:
The Power of Foundational Research

Prior to working on this project, I had been responsible for lots of product- and feature-specific projects, as well as design validation studies. These projects are common in UX Research, especially for junior researchers. The goals of those projects are to get feedback on how usable a product or feature is, how accessible the design is, or how well the solution fits a customer need. This research is our bread and butter, often the crux of determining the very basic needs of product success.

But being a part of the driver safety research showed me a new side to UX Research, one that felt closer to the academic spaces I had come from.

The stories from this brave group of individuals from across the US sparked new conversation around what our technology and solutions could do to help. Our PMs, POs, engineers, and others spoke passionately about potential considerations to help with.

• How might a customer use Hum to file insurance claims?

• How might a customer use Hum to follow up on after-crash needs, like car repair or rental services, or even counseling or physical rehabilitation?

• Who could Hum partner with to make those options available?

Most movingly, though, is that after we presented this material, members of our Hum team spent the days and weeks afterward sharing their own stories.

Many parents shared how they feared for their teens’ first driving experiences, explaining the bevy of worries that come into their minds as they think about all of the potential dangers that come with driving.

One person shared a story about how their significant other had a similarly fragmented and vivid memory of the experience of the crash, hyper-focused on how their phone flew up into the air and out of the shattered window in slow-motion.

Another person shared that they still went a few minutes out of their way every day to and from work to avoid the intersection where they experienced a crash.

This also started to help us expand how to think about other safety use cases. One theme that seemed to come up was helping track loved ones who might experience issues with chronic illnesses. This was starting to come up in reviews and conversations about purchasing Hum for older adults, and it offered another anthropological aspect to our research.

After seeing the ripple effects that this research had, I started to understand how foundational, thematic research could really make an impact. I have brought this layer to all of my projects since, and I look for more opportunities to develop fundamental practices!

Special thank-yous to my fellow UX teammates: Alexa Carleo, Shannon Lecates, Thomas Lodato, Marlana Coignet, Sujit Shrestha, Seth Johnston, and our entire Hum team for the collaboration on these efforts!

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