In-Car AI Experience

As part of an experiential learning course for my MS Design Innovation, I worked with a large automobile brand to research user needs and develop an AI solution to meet them.

Research Phase

The Challenge: How can our brand create a holistic, AI-powered system that adapts various in-car functionalities to individual driver profiles?

First, my team and I developed a research framework to gain a holistic view of customers' car experiences.

We used the Social, Economy, Technology (SET) framework to shape our secondary research and findings. For primary research, our mixed-method research approach included in-car interviews, personal immersion, and customer journey diaries.

Insights & Opportunities

We synthesized our research data into insights that were interesting, relevant, and actionable. Then we developed frameworks to organize our insights and generated "How might we..." statements to drive our ideation.

Ideation & Solutioning

Now comes the fun part - ideation! Using rapid visualization and brainstorming techniques, we brainstormed ideas to meet the user needs we identified earlier.

Focusing In: We organized, consolidated, and narrowed down our ideas until we came to a team consensus on a singular concept (made up of multiple ideas).

Once we decided on our path forward, we built out our final concept and defined how it would fit into the customer journey.

Storytelling & Business Value

Bringing our Idea to Life: In order to effectively communicate our idea and its benefits to our client, we developed a storyboard that showcased an example in-car customer journey.

To complete the "desirability, feasibility, viability" framework, we built out the business model canvas to express our concept's value proposition, costs and revenues, customer segments, key activities, and future roadmap.

Skills Applied

Ethnographic Research

From defining our research objectives and approach to conducting customer interviews and diary studies, ethnographic research was the crux of this project.

Storyboarding

By developing a storyboard using rapid visualization techniques, our client was able to envision the product and how customers would use it.