User-Centered Design for the Future
JLR Automotive Innovation Research
Goal: Define a UX strategy for far-future in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems
Process: Establish a rich understanding of user needs before, during, and after vehicle journeys (because people change more slowly than the technology that serves them), via diary studies, contextual interviews, and concept prototyping
Outcome: The concepts were well-received, and the artifacts were shared with senior leaders at JLR. Because this was a conceptual/strategic engagement, the primary impact was a cultural shift in approaching innovation at the company.
My Role
- UX Research lead, designing, coordinating, conducting user interviews/evaluations, and reporting on results and recommendations
Longitudinal Diary Study
Recruit
Existing JLR or luxury vehicle owners in Portland area
Demographic mix
Must be willing to record themselves/passengers in their vehicle
Session Design
Participants were given a set of "assignments" to record, with specific prompts to talk through for each assignment.
We also conducted a pre- and post- study interview to learn more about each participant and capture any final thoughts from the experience
Analysis & Synthesis
The initial research led to insights about user needs all along their journeys.
Insights fed into a design thinking session to generate and prioritize concepts to evaluate.
Storyboarding & Wireframing
We created storyboards to refine the concepts born in the design thinking sessions. These artifacts helped drive alignment on use cases and user stories prior to prototyping.
Following the storyboarding, we worked our way from low to high-fidelity wireframes. After a round of user testing and iteration on the wireframes, we created a functional prototype.
Final Concept Evaluation
Recruit
Target previous participants, as well as additional luxury vehicle owners
Recruit subset as dyads to evaluate driver/passenger interactions
Session Design
Users walked through basic tasks using a functional protoype in a modified LR3
Participants provided qualitative feedback on ease of use, satisfaction with each feature
We also collected quantitative data for task completion, time on task, ease of use ratings, and feature satisfaction/appeal
Artifacts & Outcome
We delivered the prototype, a final report summarizing user feedback around its features and functionality, as well as an overall insights and strategy deck based on the data collected throughout the project. We continued working with various teams at JLR to evolve their roadmaps by applying similar user-centered design methods.