Novo Ride by Telenav
An in-car infotainment app focused on promoting safer driving — surfacing on-road behavior insights, daily breakdowns, gamified challenges, and a rewards layer tying safe-driving streaks back to tangible payouts.
Novo Ride by Telenav — in-car infotainment for safer driving
Telenav designed an in-car infotainment app focused on promoting safer driving. The app provides drivers with clear insights into their on-road behavior — how often they hard brake, accelerate aggressively, or engage in high-speed driving. These factors are combined into an overall safety score, giving drivers a simple, meaningful way to understand and improve their driving habits.
Overview
The Overview screen gives drivers a clear snapshot of their performance over a 30-day rolling window. It highlights key driving behaviors — rapid acceleration, hard braking, and speeding — which are combined into an overall Safety Score.
Alongside this, drivers can see a personalized insurance estimate showing how their safe driving could translate into lower monthly premiums if they switch to Telenav.
Driver Board
The Driver Board provides a detailed breakdown of driving performance, allowing drivers to track their habits by day or by week. It highlights key behaviors — rapid acceleration, hard braking, and speeding — so drivers can clearly see patterns in their performance over time.
By comparing day-to-day or week-to-week trends, drivers gain a deeper understanding of how consistently they're driving safely and where there's room for improvement.
Challenges
The Challenges feature gamifies the driving experience by encouraging drivers to complete specific safe-driving goals. Each challenge is designed to motivate drivers to build safer habits behind the wheel, while making the experience more engaging and rewarding.
Smooth Braking
Avoid hard braking events throughout your trips.
Speed Limit
Stay within posted speed limits on all roads.
Perfect Trips
Complete a set number of trips with zero violations.
Rewards
The Rewards section allows drivers to earn real payouts for completing driving challenges — including Amazon gift cards. By turning safe-driving achievements into tangible benefits, the app reinforces positive behavior while keeping drivers motivated.
This system not only demonstrates the impact of safer habits but also increases overall engagement by making progress both meaningful and rewarding.
From the viewpoint of the consumer
Personal insights
I want the app to reveal insights about myself that I might not notice on my own. For example, if I often feel tired in the morning, I'd like to understand whether it's tied to my sleep habits.
Fair insurance value
I also want the app to help me get fair value from my car insurance. Since I'm a safe driver, I expect my rates to reflect my behavior on the road and to be rewarded for driving responsibly.
From the viewpoint of the business
Marketing tool
The app serves as a marketing tool to encourage drivers to switch from their current insurance provider to Novo Insurance. By showcasing personalized insights and rewards, it builds trust and creates a compelling reason to consider a change.
Partnership strategy
The business also aims to form partnerships with automotive companies, using the app as a bridge to offer car insurance directly to vehicle owners.
Technology showcase
Finally, the app demonstrates that Novo's technology is consumer-ready — highlighting the company's ability to deliver innovative, user-friendly solutions at scale.
Design process
Discovery
We began by exploring the landscape — reviewing competitor apps, running large-scale surveys, and gathering insights into what features drivers value most. This phase set the foundation for understanding both the market and user expectations.
Definition
From these insights, we created initial personas based on key assumptions and patterns. Working closely with product managers, we brainstormed feature ideas and developed early design concepts, aligning our direction with stakeholder needs.
Development
We translated concepts into structure by mapping information architecture and interaction flows for critical use cases. At the same time, we built UI component libraries and visual assets, while testing concepts with potential users to ensure our designs matched their goals and expectations.
Delivery
Our team worked in three-week design sprints, always one step ahead of development. Most of our effort focused on new features, while the rest went into refining documentation, addressing overlooked use cases, and smoothing UX and UI details to keep the product moving forward.
Measurement & evolution
As the product grew across different platforms and operating systems, the design naturally evolved. Each stage brought new opportunities to refine, adapt, and improve the experience in response to both user feedback and technical constraints.
Latest status
The Novo Ride app was eventually discontinued. Telenav's core navigation business for OEMs was in decline, and the app never reached scale beyond a small pool of users from aftermarket head unit sales. As a result, company focus shifted to mobile app development for the Novo Car Insurance program.
Lessons learned
Market fit matters more than vision
The total addressable market was smaller than expected, and awareness remained low. Early distribution through aftermarket head units and a limited trial in the Audi app store drove little traction. In hindsight, launching first on mobile (CarPlay/Android Auto) would have been the stronger path.
Business readiness must match technology
Selling to automotive partners stalled because insurance wasn't yet available in all 50 states. Even with a strong product, misalignment between business execution and the technology stack can block adoption.
Practical insights could have added more value
While the app emphasized driver safety scoring, I believe everyday metrics like miles driven, fuel costs, or trip summaries would have been more compelling entry points — with safety insights layered on top.
Rewards drive engagement
The rewards feature was consistently the most engaging part of the app, especially in Daisata head units. In retrospect, rewards should have been the lead story for marketing, design, and product development.
- automotive
- behavioral design
- safety
- infotainment
- Telenav