Designing the future of
social interaction in automobiles.
Designing the future of
social interaction in automobiles.
February — August 2021
Design Lead
Victor Grajski
Sarah Hand
Cam Davison
Jenny Ong
In this project, sponsored by 99P Labs—an innovation lab backed by Honda and The Ohio State University, we were challenged to investigate existing social interaction in and between automobiles and envision its future. At the same time, we sought to create and document novel and effective human-centered research and rapid prototyping methods to be passed on and used within Honda.
We proposed Swervo—a “car-as-a-game console” system that allows families to turn drive time into moments of connection through play. I created visual and physical models that were integral to testing and communicating our ideas to users and clients. I also led the visual design of our final product-service proposal. Additionally, I was a contributing project manager and developed the administrative structure to help us align team and project goals.
To define a valuable opportunity for our clients at an impactful scale, we began by expanding the problem space using primary and secondary research to define our target and mission. Then we expanded on our design space and created experience prototypes which led our final design proposal.
The blue-sky nature of this project was overwhelming at first. To help us establish coherence from ambiguity, I created a concept map to methodically break down the prompt. This model anchored the team and the client in a shared understanding of our problem space. It also established a culture of creating clarity with visual models whenever we are faced with a big hairy problem.
We performed a range of diverse research methods from contextual inquiry to academic research reports over the 3-month exploratory phase. I designed this roadmap to succinctly capture and structure our research process.
In addition to primary research, domain research was a crucial part of the research process. Being in a car is a universal experience and commuting is a significant part of people’s everyday lives. We needed to understand not only what people were doing in their cars now, but also what broader social and technological trends are shaping the current and future landscape. Through reading and discussing 100+ papers and articles, we discovered 4 key trends that were crucial for framing our project:
Connectivity and autonomy point to a future where the car interior is a space more conducive to productivity, entertainment, and digital connection.
Mass proliferation of easily accessible information and virtual connection has turned people’s attention into a valuable commodity. In stark contrast, in-person interactions are becoming scarce.
There is a shift in young people’s view of cars, as less valuable than their cellphones, pointing to the dying of America's love affair with the car.
Yet, in 2020 we saw an increase in domestic travel and a surge of second-hand car sales. COVID made cars more attractive as they once again symbolized freedom.
Connectivity and autonomy point to a future where the car interior is a space more conducive to productivity, entertainment, and digital connection.
Mass proliferation of easily accessible information and virtual connection has turned people’s attention into a valuable commodity. In stark contrast, in-person interactions are becoming scarce.
There is a shift in young people’s view of cars, as less valuable than their cellphones, pointing to the dying of America's love affair with the car.
Yet, in 2020 we saw an increase in domestic travel and a surge of second-hand car sales. COVID made cars more attractive as they once again symbolized freedom.
These 4 trends reveal that we are at a crucial inflection point where the nature of the car journey is changing. These findings helped us contextualize and direct primary research. Through contextual interviews and storyboarding with 41 participants we discovered 2 key themes that point to a rich opportunity space.
Over and over again, we heard that people perceive time in the car as lost time caught between leisure and productivity.
At the same time, we also observed that the constraints of the car actually afford people time and space to enjoy the present moment.
Despite what people say about how they think their time in the car is lost, we also learned that time and space in a car are naturally great for having intimate conversations, and playing creative games.
When we flipped the perceived limitations of the car into unique affordances, we uncovered a rich opportunity to
We decided to focus on families as the target user, because, from our interviews, we learned that people’s most memorable moments of connection are almost always spent with their families.
Since cars elicit strong personal and emotional connection, we used visual storytelling through a concept video to capture our insight and mission. Cam and I developed the script and shot list for the video.
For the second half of our project we focused on bringing our opportunity space to life in a concrete and actionable way. We began by breaking down our opportunity space into its key components: leveraging unique constraints of the car and creating connection. Iterating on our mental model, I realized that connection actually had two components: how users connected with each other and how users interact with the system through different sensory modes. This realization unlocked our framework:
flips the perceived limitations of being in a car into unique design opportunities.
effectively fosters shared presence between family members because it is Intrinsically motivated, spontaneous, actively engaging and creative.
operationalize play using 5 types of sensory input and outputs
This framework provided us a way to rapidly and systematically ideate new experiences in the car. Ultimately, each series of prototypes we explored sought to answer: Can this combination of interaction modalities, car’s affordances and play dynamics come together to create connection for families?
Altogether we explored and iterated on 7 different play experiences. To illustrate our rapid prototyping process, here is a deep dive into one of these experiences:
As a part of our ideation process, our team regularly enacted scenarios with materials around the lab or on spontaneous drives. In this prototype, two of our team members held a shared board (frisbee) and tried to keep the marble centered. A third member shook their chairs simulating car movement.
With the basic viability of this combination validated, we built a higher fidelity prototype to test with users. The next version of the prototype used foam boards, pool noodles, and Legos. I designed and built a portable foam board “car” so that we can conduct low-cost, but contextual, guerrilla testing in the park. We saw in the field that even with this simple, analog prototype, players laughed often, and they were highly motivated to complete the maze together.
To implement a prototype fit for a moving car as well as explore underlying technologies, I collaborated with my teammate Victor to build a digital-physical version of the prototype. We digitized the communication between the user input and game board output, which allowed us to physically separate the seat controllers from the game board. I built the hardware components while Victor coded the program. We tested the prototype with 7 families in their cars over the span of a weekend.
Overall this prototype was a resounding success at fostering connection. Players loved how they had to physically move in order to control the game, and parents loved how their kids had to talk to each other and work together in order to play. To add an element of personalization, we allowed kids to create their own custom Lego game boards. Kids loved being able to express their creativity, and they wanted to keep playing with new boards and try ones that others created. These more exploratory components of our research point to a number of opportunities for further iteration and unique business partnerships such as crowdsourcing Lego game board designs.
We explored deeply as well as broadly. Beyond the above example, we also prototyped various combinations from auditory and visual interactions in the form of a voice agent to a combination of auditory and haptic in the form of buttons placed at different locations in the car.
This process allowed us to quickly gather a collection of interactions and playful activities that families love. Ultimately we learned that different combinations of the car’s unique affordance paired specific play dynamics and the appropriate modes of interaction was the recipe for creating authentic connections for families. These insights and our testing led to our final proposal.
Swervo is a system that uses personal, contextual and telematic data to create engaging gameplay experiences that foster connection for families in the car. As a part of the Swervo system, the car itself is a front-end console with embedded sensors that enables play. As players interact with the car through different sensory modes such as visual and haptic interactions, the data collected by the sensors becomes input into a back-end data network that processes the information into appropriate outputs that enable the play. The cycle of data flow, from car to the riders and back again, turns the static car space into an immersive and dynamic play environment.
Beyond proving that Swervo can fulfill a significant need for the target user through user research, we also ventured to answer the question: What long-term strategic and market values can Swervo bring to Honda?
From speaking with stakeholders within Honda, we learned that data-driven innovation is one of the company’s long-term, strategic priorities. Swervo provides new use cases centered on play for existing sensors and for additional sensors to be integrated.
Because Swervo is built on human connections through play, it is designed to evolve with technology. And because Swervo is a constantly updating system of inputs and outputs, it can be customized to the families as they grow and age with their car.
As a part of the final proposal we outlined a 4-phase data integration strategy that progressively expands its scale. This model shows how Honda can broaden the target market as technology infrastructure develops.
Building the data structure within the car. Leverage existing in-car sensors to create the basic interactions that underlying each game play.
Connecting the basic data structure within the car to an remote and overarching Honda network, allowing continuous data feedback of user behavior and interaction to enable continuous, real-time gameplay improvements.
Connecting cars not just to Honda, but to each other, enabling cross-car game play based on crowdsourced content.
Connecting the vehicle to its surrounding environment. creating a ubiquitous data-driven ecosystem where the car will be able to derive semantic and contextual meaning by bringing the outside in to create more personalized and immersive play experiences.
I learned that I am the type of designer who instinctively organizes nebulous ideas and complex information into clear and easy to understand visual models as a way to gather and share my thinking. I am also someone who proactively creates templates for clear process documentation. Turns out these instincts are great traits for leading a team of creative minds. I believe that images speak louder than words, and since I’m not a loud speaker, I learned to lean-in to my visual making skills as another way to express my voice.
I took an improv class during part of the project and I realized that practicing the core principles of improv actually helped me become a better designer. Rule 1: Always say “yes, and...” This principle is the key to creative ideation, especially for blue-sky projects such as this one. I learned to work with unexpected constraints and build on top of my team’s ideas. Rule 2: Always make your partner look good. I believe that I will succeed if my team succeeds so I learned each teammate’s communication styles so that we could openly give and receive candid feedback. Rule 3: Tell a story. I learned that a story has an arc and a moral. These patterns help make your communication more impactful and sticky.
