Since 2018 we’ve worked on a retained basis for Digital Charging Solutions (DCS), providing an embedded UX/UI resource for this major automotive business as it scales at pace.
Our engagement focuses on the ChargeNow and ChargeNow for Business brands, which provide electric vehicle drivers with access to a vast network of public charging stations.
The company also offers a fully integrated white label service to car manufacturers, with ten global brands, including Mercedes, Audi and Toyota onboarded to date.
This service enables brands to take advantage of DCS’s existing network of electric vehicle charging stations rather than build their own.
We’re the single agency partner for UX and UI work across the entire product suite, adding features and tools as the brands grow and scale.
An embedded design resource
Deeply embedded within DCS, we form a key component of their design unit.
We are relied upon to consistently deliver within tight timescales and within fixed budgets.
Bolting seamlessly on to internal design resource, we bring external experience and best practice from the wider UX world that ensures outstanding outcomes.
Embedded since 2018
We've worked with DCS for over 5 years
2018
Product strategy
Being so ingrained in the product, we’ve also taken on a strategic role in the project, helping identify and explore new opportunities and offerings.
Our remit extends far beyond merely providing assets.
We were instrumental in the formation of the organisation’s B2B offering, taking it from design sprints to test out ideas through to UX design and launch.
More broadly we’re on hand to guide DCS on their journey to becoming more user-centric, helping to prioritise user testing and strengthening relationships between customer services and design.
‘Spreading the word about UX’ is now a KPI for the DCS design team, and we’re always looking for more opportunities to research, test and learn as we go.
Agile project management
Work on the products is run in a strict agile process, with the central team acting as scrum masters and maintaining the backlog for cross-discipline scrum teams.
Regular online stand ups to keep communication tight, encourage collaboration and make sure that all teams know what each other is working on.
Always important, but particularly vital given that teams are spread all over Europe.
With an ambitious product release cycle to keep on top of, it’s vital that the agile framework, with fortnightly sprint and sprint reviews, refinements and retros is adhered to.
Make Agile work for you - balancing methodology and momentum
Agile methodologies are great, but they’re not one size fits all. We discuss hitting the right balance of process and progress.
UI design system
A major part of our work is to maintain a central, extensible design system that is shared across all digital platforms.
It serves as a fully-documented, complete UI system for the DCS branded apps, but also works easily with every partner brand.
Each time a new partner purchases the white label solution, we’re able to rapidly incorporate a new brand and deliver a seamless, instantly recognisable experience for each brand’s customers.
The structure of this system also feeds directly into the front-end frameworks, providing the semantic basis for all templating work.
This documented design system allows engineering partners to implement our design work with minimal fuss and achieve consistent results across multiple platforms.
The pains (and gains) of managing a multi-brand UI design system
Find out more about the lessons we’ve learned whilst working with DCS 🚗
