Horizon

[Horizon] is an four-week car interior design project to explore possible future for electric vehicle in China. The whole team consists industrial designers, communication designer, interaction designer and a design manager from Denmark, Switzerland, USA and China. In cooperation with Design School Kolding, Etrans DK and Volkswagen.

Team with: Line Jensen, LIU Hongbo, Kiki Mikkelsen, Martin von Siebenthal, Christopher Loffreda, YE Yingwei, Ditte Blohm Poulsen

My roles: industrial design, interaction design, UI, user research.

Challenge

How can we connect car customisers, in a way that meets their need to be a part of a community, a brotherhood, and at the same time use the benefits of the electric vehicle to make it more enticing than a gasolin-driven car?

Pitch

In looking at car customisers in China, we found that they connect, communicate and socialize in a unique way: car clubs. These clubs are in fact representatives of a need we all share, a need for connection and interaction with those who understand us. We introduce an interactive dashboard that intensifies this exact feeling of belonging.  It facilitates communication and sharing with one specific, or multiple, persons, at the same time. It brings the people in your life, closer to you, even when you are alone in your car. 

Goal

Our goal is to provide the user with an electric vehicle that both understands and supports their needs for communicating with other club members, and, intensifies their personal feeling of belonging. Our project focuses on the dashboard as a means of interaction and on the relationship between the user and the other club members as the reason for it. We aim at integrating a feeling of brotherhood and togetherness in the car, and through an interactive screen, provide the user with easy access to their peers (talking, sharing music and competing). This focus will make the interior of the electric vehicle a part of the community to the extent of the individual users needs.  

Research and Discover

Culture and history

Looking at how car industry developed in China and the current trend on the market, we gather information to help us understand user behaviours, purchase behaviour, how users feel about their cars and what a car means to Chinese people. 

Survey and Focus group

We visited a car customising fair and interviewed several persons to know the current trends, critical facts for different types of users, user expectations and the advantages and disadvantages of EV. Interview, survey focus group are main methods.

1. Car customised to be an identity piece

When the target group bought a car, he will customize it to give it stronger personality. They believe, the car is their second suit, which reflects their own identity. 

2. Always online

There are walkie-talkies on cars, so drivers can talk when they move. It’s important to keep connected and online within the driving group. 

3. Sensitive to technical trends

They are the first ones to get new gadgets, especially 3C/tech products. It means that they lead the trend and never be left behind. 

Ideation

Persona and insights

Emotions

  1. Likes the Feeling of control

  2. Likes to show his personality

  3. Likes the feeling of superiority

  4. Sees the car as an extension of the self

  5. Enjoys the feeling of community and brotherhood

  6. Seeks status through joining a car club

  7. Likes the known and the safe

  8. Enjoys and values the driving experience

Needs

  1. Likes the known and the safe

  2. Needs technological gadgets to be reliable

  3. Needs to know where other club members are

  4. Needs to communicate with other club members while driving

  5. Wants to share music with other club members

  6. Sees the car as a personal vehicle to be driven only by himself

Car features

Quick, easy and reliable contact to other club members through quick-button on steering wheel and via touchscreen; one-to-one, or one-to-many.

  1. Large display showing people around you, marked according to emotional closeness to the driver.

  2. The car shows the people the user connects to the most. Easy access to share music between club members. A radar shows physical location as well as emotional status.

  3. Access to an online leaderboard

  4. Access to member zone.

Solutions

Community & Integrated

“Community” is our concept aiming to build a new relationship between driver and car, which enable the car plays a role of driver’s skin.

We no longer have to see the car as an isolated sphere, but have the opportunity of feeling being a part of the car.

Main Value For Users

The user will have easier access to communicating with other car club members. 

This emotional attachment will be intensified in the car visually and atmospherically to let them feel the brotherhood and stay connected with the whole community even when he is alone in his car.

Design - Physical form and digital experience