Collaborative project to design a future urban mobility system for Audi.
UX Lead
10 Weeks
Global Team
The Academy of Art University took part in one of Audi AG collaborated to design contest. The goal was to design the future of urban mobility for Audi customers in the year 2050 focusing on California customers.
We had the great opportunity to collaborate with the Global Experience Team at Audi AG. where we had Gael and Andrea, two leaders of the team, come in every week to give feedback as well as sharing presentations with the entire team.
I was a part of the Global Team that was in charge of dividing the 40 designers into groups of five and maintain the focus on delivering a cohesive design solution for Audi.We were in charge of how the final solutions from the teams would be presented and what direction they would take in the process.
My role as a designer during the 10 weeks was to lead the Experience team. In the group of 40 designers we had around 10 UX Designers that were divided into the five teams as well as having 2 on the Global Team.
Our challenge was to evolve with Audi customers and non-Audi customers to enter the highly competitive mobility market in the U.S. How could we completely understand how mobility users would think in 25 years?
Well... we wanted to create a clear path to offer the customers the best form of sustainable mobility and, in addition, to act consistently in a sustainable way in all areas of the business. Our main goal was to understand the customers, seeing the vision in the future as personas, where they live, and what they drive.
With our new perspective of the future of urban mobility, and designing in one of the most competitive fields, we hoped to create deeper relationships with Audi customers and give them more clarity on where they stand as customers.
We conducted market research to give us a better understanding of the current mindset of the mobility users in California. This research gave us more depth into what we had to put our focus in. This research gave us a lot of information to go forward in thinking of the future behaviour of mobility users in California.
Panorama of the Industrial Design Studio
The market research was mainly focused on all mobility users not Audi specifically. Therefore we conducted a customer research as well where we focused mainly on Audi customers and tried to both connect the dots between the two as well as finding the main differences.
To meet the futuristic market, we decided to to design and build a brand new side-website for Audi but still explore and try to bounce away from the existing architecture. It was important to still focus on the brand values. We though this tactic was perceived to be advantageous and the least riskiest to harm the final product.
This important decision on following the current architecture of the brand both digital and mental made a huge impact on delivering both in timely manner and a better quality in the final product.
Creating an independent relationship between the driver and the car will not only allow the user to relax but create a more enjoyable experience. For the interface to have longevity, we must adapt to every user’s need and wants versus our urban society.
Each team now had the clear path to design a product that would fit the vision of the Global Team. The teams were given their brand designed by the graphic design leader on the Global Team. Audi Beyond was the name to represent the project as a whole and The Global team designed Audi Synergy which would be the space where all Audi users could come together and relax.
The main focus was to understand the importance of the persona. Based on the market and costumer research each team went in full depth on understanding the what their user did for living, how the user benefit from being an Audi customer.
We wanted to get a better visualisation of the process that the persona goes through in order to accomplish their goals with using Audi. We designed user journey maps to get a better understanding of their day-to-day goals.
To go even more in depth we wanted to see how our persona tackles their day tasks. So we created a timeline for each persona to see exactly at what time a day Audi will be most important to the user.
Synergy is a unique experience by Audi Beyond, linking people of all lifestyles together to interact in the versatile world of Audi. Synergy serves as a place to recharge. Spending time working in our café, recharging in our parking pods, or relaxing in our premium Audi lounge, the possibilities are endless. A place where all can unite and prosper: Synergy.
The global team laid down a manifesto and a philosophical direction for the architecture of each team. The designs range from mid-century to Bauhaus design, following the styleguide from the Global Team.
Each team designed their own car concept. Our biggest goal here was to show off how the car would connect the persona to the architecture, showing customers that the full Audi experience is so much more than just the car.
The digital experience had to be consistent between teams. The UX part of the Global Team developed a styleguide and helped to design all the experiences that would represent Audi.
After we presented the final website we were awarded in the top three to travel to Ingolstadt and present in the Audi headquarters. Due to Covid restrictions it was put on delay.
I was honoured to win the in-class award where one student was picked to receive money award for their effort in the class.
As an extra for the website, I designed my own typeface. The typeface was heavily inspired by the Bauhaus Design. Every letter is based on perfect geometry (circles and rectilinears) and the typeface was used for headers on the website as well as project headers.
