Designing problems by designing solutions [Part 3]
By: Sidney Debaque
Tags: Autonomous Cars, Service Design, Ethics, User Experience, Design Thinking

In this third and final part, we’re testing prototypes and explain how they allow virtuous innovation but are less desirable.

The case of autonomous vehicles.

This is the last publication about the Master's research I’ve conducted when studying in 2018 at Hyper Island in Manchester. In the first two publications, I’ve respectively explained why autonomous vehicles onboard experience is likely to reinforce behaviours harmful to society and what design requirements we should adopt to empower users.

In the first article, I explain that autonomous vehicles are a solving business problems, not people problems. This focus frames the research and the definition of “good solution”. It prioritises business interests to users and society wellbeing. This results in onboard experiences focusing on allowing people to consume (watching Netflix) or produce (work) and sleep.

In the second article, I’m exploring ways autonomous vehicles could be a solution for people to gain back time to focus on themselves. The discovery research converges towards two activities for people to focus on themselves: education and disconnection. I’ve then researched ways to support people to do so, and defined design requirements for autonomous vehicles onboard experiences.

Today, I’m talking about solutions.

Prototyping has been done with my colleagues when working at different in Berlin as well as some testing. The rest of the testing has been done through online survey. I’ve tested 2 items, user desirability to use some concept over another, business sustainability by researching how specific concept could evolve and create new business models and customer propositions.

TL;DR 🥁🥁🥁

I’m going to spoil it all right here, users picked concept focusing on working by a lot. Features, tangibility, ability to foresee how it would fit in the daily life were key characteristics for people to predominantly choose a concept that allows them to work.

However, concepts focusing on empowering users consistently scored better in the speculative sessions with business. Onboard experience concepts that moved away from constraining people to work or consume, generate more ideas with a positive impact as well as a higher volume of business opportunities in the medium and long term.

That was the resume from the research. For those still tagging along and want to know about concepts and the details of testing, read through.

The prototypes:

I’ve designed 3 high-level concepts focusing on empowering users. I’ve added 1 focusing supporting work-related activities to be compared with the three other concepts:

Idea Napkin used to test high level concepts — here Exploring Creation

Exploring creation

This focuses on creating “challenges & games to teach tech and behavioural literacy. The goal was to use an entertaining approach for people to understand how a car interacts with its environment.

It supports people to create music and video content thanks to the onboard technology. To create audio content, for instance, users can define rules to base the tempo on (trees on the sidewalk) and base the pitch on the altitude compared to sea level. This is the first step for users to understand how to interact with onboard experience.

Idea Napkin used to test high level concepts — here Discover & Learn

Discover & Learn

There’s always something you wish you could learn, either cooking, coding or even knitting. However, people don’t know how to start and don’t always have time. To take benefit of their commute, users can learn something that matters to them.

They can also choose “Discover” which enables them to randomly learn things. While one is focused on a user and what it wants to learn, discovering focuses on expanding their horizon. This randomness helps in building curiosity and creativity.

Idea Napkin used to test high level concepts — here Create & Live

Create and live

Have you ever been stuck in traffic and wished to be somewhere else? Through this onboard experience, users will be able to have a yoga session, to fly over a city or simply to develop their own narrative and create a game if they wish to.

Through a control panel, they will choose the activity they want to live. Based on their choice, lighting, seating, window transparency, sound, etc. will adjust for them to be able to live the experience they want.

If they wish to create their own experience, a touchscreen will enable them to do so, by connecting the car’s features.

Idea Napkin used to test high level concepts — here Work

Work

How about optimising the commute by being at work as soon as you leave your home?

If users need to focus on work, the experience will adapt for them to be at ease and work while commuting. However, users can also plan a meeting and have visio-conferences from within the car or pick up attendees to go to work with them.

Based on their working calendar, the car reminds people of which time to leave. From home to car to work, a seamless working experience through cloud synchronisation.