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CANVAS

Client

Ford Motor Co. – D-Ford Design 

Team

Misho Miloshevski (Lead VD)

Juan Pasquier (Design Lead)

the problem.

As the mobility market expands, vehicle manufacturers are experiencing a dip in brand loyalty.

Ford sought to better understand their customers and create in-vehicle experiences that encouraged drivers in all sectors (ownership, rental, subscription) to remain within the Ford family. 

My Role

UX/UI Design (Interaction & VD)

Presenter at Global Expo​

Duration

6 Weeks – Summer 2018

the solution.

Develop an application that saves the preferences users set while in a Ford vehicle, such as steering wheel height, seat position and music presets, utilizing the profile based system in 2018 Ford and Lincoln vehicles. Allow users to apply these preferences to any vehicle in the Ford/Lincoln lineup, thereby creating the desired feeling of "ownership and comfort" in all Ford vehicles and building brand loyalty.

design challenge.

How might we increase customer loyalty to the Ford/Lincoln brand? 

Company Name

Profile Limitations

Customizable Features

Primary or Intended Users

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  • Max 3 Profiles

  • Settings can only be applied to vehicle when user is inside

  • Limited to vehicle where profile was made

  • Seat Location

  • Mirror Location

  • Steering Wheel Height

  • Many Vehicle Owners

  • Secondary Drivers

  • No Passengers

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  • Max 3 Profiles

  • Settings can only be applied to vehicle when user is inside

  • Limited to vehicle where profile was made

  • MID Display Settings 

  • Audio System Display

  • Driving Assistant Display

  • Some Vehicle Owners

  • Some Secondary Drivers

  • No Passengers

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  • Max 3 Profiles

  • Settings can only be applied to vehicle when user is inside

  • Limited to vehicle where profile was made

  • Seat Location

  • Exterior Mirror Location

  • Heads-up Display (HUD)

  • Vehicle Owners

  • Few Secondary Drivers

  • No Passengers

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  • 3 Profiles hard-set in vehicle

  • Unlimited profiles held in app

  • Settings applied before user enters vehicle

  • Profiles can be applied to any/all vehicles

30+ Features Including:

  • Navigation & Climate

  • Mirror & Pedal Location

  • Radio Presets & Voice

  • Seat Location...and more

  • Vehicle Owners

  • Secondary Drivers

  • Passengers

  • Subscription Model

  • Potential Multi Modal Users

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As the mobility market expands, vehicle manufacturers seek to ensure industry relevance and brand loyalty. Our research team at D-Ford set out to understand the major pain points of vehicle owners, specifically around in-vehicle personalization. 

Our research uncovered two main insights - firstly, many vehicles in the Ford lineup were "family cars" and had multiple drivers of varying age, gender and physical size which affected how the car was used. Each person wanted to feel a unique sense of ownership and comfort in the vehicle that was not being fulfilled.

 

Secondly, many owners were reluctant to acquire a new vehicle because of the personalization barrier - the feeling that "I know my car and my car knows me, but a new car will not". Subsequently, our team worked to ensure that drivers could retain their vehicle personalization when moving through the Ford lineup - making it feel as if any Ford vehicle "knows you".

Our design team worked with the In Vehicle Profile Engineering team to frame and tackle the following:

"HMW make all drivers feel a sense of ownership & comfort in any Ford vehicle?".

design solution.

Portable Profiles – take your preferences with you anywhere you go

With a Ford "Personal Portable Profile" users are able to feel at home in any Ford vehicle (as a driver or a passenger). Using PAAK: Phone As A Key, technology, 2018 Ford vehicles are able to identify the driver before they enter the vehicle and adjust over 30 different customizable settings to their exact preference. 

Our team was asked to apply our Profile solution to the existing Ford vehicle subscription service "Canvas" for the Ford Global Technology Expo. The following case study includes my contributions to: research, benchmarking, user group identification, concept development and digital asset creation. 

benchmarking.

Our team evaluated how different automotive companies allowed drivers to set and store their preferences, 

focusing on three questions: 

  1. How many users can take advantage of the service?

  2. What features are customizable?

  3. What users are taking advantage of this service?

We spoke directly to Chevy, Toyota and Volvo drivers to learn about their experiences and then tested out the services in each ourselves.

Understanding the Lincoln Experience

After working to understand the competitor's experience, our team did the same for the 2018 Lincoln vehicles - taking into account that the features had not yet been released so our terminology "Primary Users" was updated to "Intended/Potential Users".

This process helped identify potential untapped users and led us to focus our attention on "user group definition".

We worked to understand all possible users that Ford/Lincoln could gain (and keep) with the introduction of personal portable profiles.

Since none of the other brands had touched the Subscription Model Users or the Multi-Modal Transportation Users we focused there.

defining use cases.

Focused on the desire for a feeling of "ownership and comfort" our team created three unique cases for customizable profiles. By not allowing ourselves to be limited by unique persona characteristics or the presence of a vehicle, this idea moved past an in-vehicle experience benefit to one that impacts the entire transit experience.

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Subscription + 

Multi-Vehicle 

Part A: Renting a Vehicle

  • Allow users to apply their Profile to any Ford rental vehicle thereby curating a positive, memorable experience & encouraging them
    to rent Ford

 

Part B: Subscription Platform

  • Build the user base of Ford's subscription platform, Canvas then operating only in California

Part C: Lessee Retention

  • Create an incentive for new or existing lessees who are looking to join or remain in the Ford family

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One Vehicle

Multiple Owners

Part A: Family Vehicles

  • Reduce friction between family members who have different tastes in music, climate or lighting AND those who have significant height differences - impacting preferences such as seat location and steering wheel height

Part B: One-Time Lending

  • Enable owners to easily lend their car out to visiting family, friends or others without having to readjust the seat and other preferences when it is returned

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Multi-Modal Transport (including AV)

Part A: Ride Sharing

  • Allow users to feel at home in Ford ride-share vehicles by applying their preferences to the area of the car they are seated in

Part B: Multi-Modal Journeys

  • Enable Ford to become involved in all parts of multi-modal journeys by applying profiles to seats/ sections on public transit, within ride-share vehicles, and bikes or scooters. 

  • This includes preferences such as where on the bus riders prefer to sit & how long they can bike for.

concept development.

Our team was asked to use a 2-week sprint to create a MVP for presentation at the Ford Global
Technology Expo. We focused on Part B of the Subscription + Multi Vehicle use case as Ford was in the process of expanding their subscription service, Canvas.

To demonstrate the value of the profile in terms of the user's ability to transfer their settings from one vehicle to another, we had users following this process:

  1. Create a profile on the 'Canvas' application

  2. Select a vehicle from the options available

  3. Enter that vehicle in real life and adjust the seat location, radio presets or other desired setting
    (the vehicle autosaved all preferences to the user's Canvas profile)

  4. Leave the first vehicle and select another from the 'Canvas' application

  5. Watch as their settings were applied to the new vehicle

  6. Enter the second vehicle to confirm everything had been applied properly

 

Shown below is the third iteration of the customer journey for use at the Expo

digital asset creation.

After understanding the target customer, brainstorming possible demo app solutions, progressing through 3 rounds of user testing and 6 meetings with Ford executives, our team refined the concept to the hi-fi experience shown below.

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At the Global Expo, we walked through the concept, use cases and demo with 16 Ford leaders from around the world, below is a live link for you to interact with our prototype 'Canvas'.

what I learned.

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Don't fall in love with the easy idea or your first idea

  • Allow yourself and your team to explore the full whitespace surrounding a problem.
    Look at it from every angle and then try to solve it in every way.

Don't limit yourself or your scope

  • Our team would not have seen the potential impact that profiles could have on the transit experience if we had limited ourselves to only considering cars.

See the big picture

  • When designing an MVP solution, don't try to build out every detail.

  • When looking at one element of a larger solution think about how it impacts the whole - don't just look at your piece, think about the puzzle!

Don't get frustrated by change

  • It's inevitable......and it's often the most fun part of ​the job.

Work to understand the roles of your teammates so you can see challenges and successes from their point of view

  • I saw a marked improvement in the relationship between our design team, the in-vehicle engineering team and the development team when we took a second to understand, appreciate and even learn some of each others​ role

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If the project gets too stressful, have a paper airplane competition. 

<-- See example 

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