Brief

Approach

• Collated and absorbed all insights regarding product positioning and spectrum of driver behaviours – allowed the ‘user research to continue to live into product development process’.
• Create proposition designs for core engineering to push innovation and test feasibility.
• Partnered with Product Marketing and Program management; select and drive product development towards commercially and customer favourable outcomes.

Ford Motor Company

Automotive Context

Design for the automotive industry

Automotive’s risk aversion is fundamental to the industry’s slow pace can be attributed to:

• Consequence of distraction
• Severity of damage
• Product complexity and compliance for edge cases

Failure at best becomes an expensive lesson fixed by repair, and at worse, very real harm to those inside and around the vehicle.

Automotive manufacturers are famously litigated for trivial to serious customer perceived faults and product error states – this dulls the appeal of transformative innovation in the industry.

Product complexity is also a significant challenge – massive amounts of validation is required for every product design decision from a part to system to holistic level, and this reduces appetite to design complex and seemingly niche features.

Interior Context

Design for an automotive interior

Designing for automotive interiors differs to ‘traditional’ phone app design – some practical differences are:

• One size fits all
  Vehicles need to be designed for 5th percentile female to 95th percentile male
• Sphere of Reach, Cone of View
  Driver’s arms can only reach within a certain zone and head positioning has limited focused viewing area.
• Dynamic movement in static environment
  Especially in off road driving environments, external forces acting on people make pressing buttons difficult
• Spectators in the car
  Driving is still very much the “driver’s job”. Passengers can observe with the driver but often cannot ‘help’ or ‘engage’ due to UI.

Customer Context

Design for an owner and driving use

The ‘one size fits all’ is a broad bandwidth beyond the phrase’s traditional geometric interpretation.

Range of mastery
Customers come into off road driving at different levels (novice to expert) and they graduate to higher levels with more off road experience they choose to develop

Range of ages
A premium SUV attracts young parents looking for a premium vehicle to ‘grow the family with’, middle aged enthusiasts looking to reconnect with nature and off road challenges, and older ’empty nesters’ looking to explore vast roads.

Range of desires
“No one wants to drive an old person’s car”, “No one wants to drive a boring minivan”, “People see my car and think I’m interesting”, “Owning this vehicle is a statement of me”.

Fast press / Tactile vs adaptable
Off road is a very different, often counterintuitive style of driving compared to road driving.

Customer Insight

User emotional attachments and preferences

Primary and secondary user research leveraged off wide range of Product Experience Strategy research, off road immersion events and expert interviews with Vehicle Attribute Owners.

• Confusion from novices
  “To be honest, I’m new to all of this and I might know what they do, but I have no idea when I’d use it”
• Affinity for hard buttons for experts
  “You need those buttons because when things go south really quickly, you need every tool ready at your finger tips”
• Showing off to friends
  “I love having buttons in my car for my friends to see – it shows them what I’ve bought”
  “I may have a lot kids so I don’t have a life anymore, but at least with an off road SUV I’m not a ‘mini-van soccer mom’.”

Themes

Product themes define how the product should feel

Theme 1:

Control Centre

Off roading is always a driver’s delight –
it’s a different experience to every day driving
and it should feel like it

Theme 2:

Spectator Sport

Passengers in the vehicle use the screen to form part of their own experience

Personas

We use single statement personas to define clear differences of personality and usage between the spectrum of customers

Product Elements

Product elements define core design principles for features and executions

Spectator Sport

Use cameras to reveal visual blindspots for everyone in cabin

• Exploring with family
  Allow all passengers to see what’s happening around the car
• Flatter the novice
  Reveal blindspots to lower anxiety driving in unfamiliar, unpredictable terrain
• Reward the Expert
  Provide useful viewing perspective to “place tyres strategically” to conquer obstacles
• Dashcards
  Provide extra information from onboard vehicle sensors.

Quantified Feedback

Replicated telemetry from driver’s view into central screen for all to see

• Like fitness wearables, audience is looking for a quantified feedback to reflect their lived experience.
• Provide numbers to enable rich and contextual story telling and bragging rights.

Off Road Control Centre

Easy to access and read off road control interface

• Drive Mode Dash Card displays most likely vehicle controls.
• Expanded off road screen shows relevant off road controls ready at your fingertips
• Big buttons easily strikeable in off road dynamic driving.

Concept: Static Off Road Screen

User research showed a consistent high value moment when drivers leave paved tarmac and get ready to ‘off road’.

This is a dedicated off road screen which can only be used while the car is parked which unlocks more features.

Flattering the novice / Exploring with family

• Technology-aided driving through easily understood Selectable Drive Modes explanations.
• Teaser into modes available if they choose to improve their mastery of off road driving.

Reward the expert

• “Press to accept additional risks” indulges egos of experts, seeds warranted hesitation for novices.
• Offer “at your own risk” calibration modifications which enhance off road capability, but catastrophic for on-road conditions.
• Change driver aid intervention levels according to personal skill and preferences.

Concept: Towing Screen

Due to their exceptional mechanical ability, off road SUVs are used as a tow vehicle (more than half are optioned with tow kits), which has its own niche operation and technique.

Jobs to be done while towing are

• Getting to your destination
• Making sure your vehicle is within operating limits
• Focusing on driving through reducing distractions

I propose a few concepts in a single ‘towing screen’

• Control Centre layout – Navigation as primary information source, and simple audio controls to avoid switching screens
• Passenger Co-Pilot – Show driver telemetry on main screen so passenger (generally another capable adult) can assist in vehicle management
• Dashcards to address biggest journey anxieties
  – Tyre health – Representative of erroneous cargo load management
  – Fuel Range – Particularly critical on long distance, self sufficient travel
  – Speed – Critical for peace of mind for ‘dominant driver’ to ‘succumb assistance’ to a secondary driver
  ^{(think when teaching someone new to drive from the passenger seat)}
  

I had unfortunately left Ford shortly after the new UI pitch to the program team. Leadership had recognised the opportunity of a new paradigm of off road experience enabled by a large vertical LCD screen that would dominate the vehicle interior.

Using a sufficiently large tablet, I was able to determine dashcard and button sizing requirements in a representative production vehicle.