/professional
/professional
Hi, I'm Josh
I'm graduating from ArtCenter College of Design in December 2018 with a Master of Science in Industrial Design and a MBA in Innovation System Design.
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I look at the world from user, business and technology perspectives to envision and create valuable future experiences.
Hi, I'm Josh
I'm graduating from ArtCenter College of Design in December 2018 with a Master of Science in Industrial Design and a MBA in Innovation System Design.
-
I look at the world from user, business and technology perspectives to envision and create valuable future experiences.
Hi, I'm Josh
I'm graduating from ArtCenter College of Design in December 2018 with a Master of Science in Industrial Design and a MBA in Innovation System Design.
-
I look at the world from user, business and technology perspectives to envision and create valuable future experiences.
Envisioning the Future of On-Demand Air Transportation
UBER Air aims to have it's first on-demand air travel demonstration to the public in year 2020. In a multidisciplinary team of 4 of interaction design, graduate transportation system design and graduate industrial design students, we were challenged to envisioned the future of on-demand air travel and design a holistic system of eVTOL, Skyport and Mobile interface to deliver a safe, hassle-free and convenient experience for busy commuters in Dallas, Dubai and Los Angeles.
From moving goods
to moving people.
Going beyond freight, the Aurora Driver is built on a common architecture capable of powering a wide range of vehicle types. We demonstrated this flexibility with Toyota on the Sienna platform. As the Aurora Driver unlocks the benefits of self-driving for both roads and the broader supply chain, Aurora aims to extend those benefits well beyond freight.
To test and validate this strategy, we assembled a small, agile team drawn from product, engineering, design, and our partners at Toyota and Denso. This initiative was driven by the voices of our future customers.
Challenge
Engineer, design and produce a fleet of roadworthy autonomous vehicles intended for ride hailing application.
Outcome
↳ Designed, engineered and produced of fleet of operational/self-driving vehicles in 2023.
↳ Initiated first external research to bring user voice into decision making processes in an engineering driven environment.
↳ Fostered design-driven and led workshops to infuse design early in the eng-dev phase.
↳ Physical touch points needed to deliver a safe and comfortable rider experience.
Value Delivered
↳ Successfully took Toyota executives on autonomous rides in Texas.
↳ Hardened partnerships and commitments with/from Uber and Toyota through successful autonomous demostration.
↳ Validated the Aurora Driver transferability strategy.
↳ Built internal muscles on cross functional product development and decision making processes.
Collaborators
Chris Matsuda, Sarah Mazzochi and many many more.
Completion
Fall 2023
💬 We spoke with 7 riders to gather stories and learnings to build a path
2023 was an inflection point for the self-driving industry. Cruise launched its ride-hailing service to the public in San Francisco and Austin, while Waymo expanded access to select members in San Francisco and Phoenix. This gave us the opportunity to speak with some of the few early riders who experienced self-driving cars for the first time.
We interviewed seven experienced self-driving car riders across San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin to learn from their experiences with Waymo and Cruise and gather their stories. Among them was a rider who has taken over 800 rides with both services.
During the 60-minute conversations, we used four exercises and discussion tools to uncover user stories, needs, hopes, and fears. The insights and voices that emerged from these sessions helped align teams, foster shared understanding, and shape the development of Aurora’s ride-hailing platform.
Research
First hand experiences—before conducting interviews, we took numerous rides with both Waymo and Cruise to better understand the rider experience and observe vehicle behavior in both nominal and off-nominal scenarios.
Exercise 1
Pre flight survey—the first exercise helped us build a foundation for 60 minute interviews by capturing participants' stories and overall impressions of todays self-driving car experiences.
Exercise 2
Sacrificial concepts—designed to gather initial feedback on our early hypothesis and design opportunities spanning key touchpoints across both hardware and digital signature moments.
Exercise 2
Trade offs—we concluded with a trade-off exercise to better understand user priorities, preferences and values.
✏️ This is what we heard and learned about self-driving car experiences.
Theme 1
Smart means building on pre-existing paradigms and minimizing steps.
↳ There’s a key difference between providing information and delivering the right information at the right time.
↳ Smart means understanding context and eliminating steps.
↳ Synchronize external light patterns with universally understood vehicle hazard light to communicate "stopped".
Theme 4
There is an unaddressed tension between safety and privacy.
↳ Riders generally accept that self-driving car rides include monitoring, assuming it’s done for safety and operational reasons.
↳ Questions and discomforts remain around how, when or what is being recorded.
↳ Presence of cameras and microphones should be clearly communicated, not partially concealed.
Theme 2
First experience lasts,
consistency prevails.
↳ Value of self-driving cars and rides come from consistency, knowing what to expect and having the same driver all the time.
↳ Riders rationally understand the need for a barrier but associates it with negative connotations.
↳ First and lasting impression of cleanliness come from the way the cabin smells.
Theme 5
Clear communication fosters a sense of safety and accommodation
↳ Riders feel assured when expected movements are first acknowledged, then explained.
↳ There is a need to clarify, educate and set expectations on terminologies used for customer or ride support.
Theme 3
Primary activity and expectation during the ride is to get some peace and quiet.
↳ Focus on maximizing space, not time.
↳ Rider want to wirelessly connect and play their music during rides. This is not a nice-to-have; it is a necessity and a requirement.
↳ Having granular cabin controls and adjustments would be nice but "just about right" is enough.
📌 Here are insights we took away to guide discussions and inform our decisions.
Insight 1
Lower the barrier to adoption by increasing visibility into vehicle behaviors, helping riders develop a sense of predictability and trust—first time riders closely evaluate the vehicle's behavior before letting their guard down. Building trust early is critical to helping them feel safe and at ease."
Thomas 💬 "as you get going, you realize like, oh, it does know what it's doing. It was almost like you were seeing what the car was seeing. So you know by looking at the screen that it knew that things were there and that was kind of comforting.
Matt 💬 "As long as you tell me with the indicators, it's going left, right going right, and I can hear it and can see it, that would be nice."
Insight 4
Offer a spacious and personable ride focused on relaxation and quiet—Riders seek a simple, spacious environment where they can relax and recharge. This doesn't mean more features, but rather only the relevant information, easy access to personal music, a cool, clean cabin, and the space to be left alone.
Maya 💬 "One of the things I really like about sitting in front in the Waymo is that I can extend and cross my legs to get comfortable."
Apoline 💬 "When I first took the Cruise, I thought I could play my own music. I was really disappointed that it was just preset radio. It felt really silly to me that it wasn't a feature. It's so silly."
Thomas 💬 "The only work I will do is basically expenses on my phone. If it involves anything with my laptop, I'm not about it."
Insight 2
Respect rider privacy by ensuring transparency and clearly communicating the status of monitoring systems—riders enter self-driving cars assuming they will be monitored for safety and development purposes—and generally accept it. However, they express a desire for transparency and clear notifications when monitoring is occurring.
James 💬 "Most ideal is not being recorded, right? Second is, if you're going to record me, please let me know. If you don't let me know, for some reason, it is going to affect my experience negatively."
Thomas 💬 "It's a little weird that they didn't point out the cameras in the Cruise car. They were trying to hide it, which is what kind of made it weird. If it's hidden and then you discover it, it kind of makes you start thinking about what they could be using it for."
Insight 5
Set clear expectations around the use and outcomes of support features to help riders feel in control—riders often lack awareness of available safety features designed to help them feel secure. There’s an opportunity to set clear expectations around their use and outcomes, so riders feel acknowledged and can access them appropriately with confidence.
Maya 💬 "I think the problem with pullover button is that it's not clear to people. It really needs to be clear. It wasn't clear with Waymo. I don't use it. I think of it as like, "oh my gosh, I left my keys on the roof of the car or whatever." That doesn't make sense thought. Something urgent, that's the word, urgent. It feels urgent."
Matt 💬 "The ability to pullover different from requesting help would be nice. The only thing is like, help, is it still driving when I request help? Or is it, am I requesting help because it's stuck? Do I only request help when it's stuck or there was a pothole or something that swerved and it made me nervous."
Insight 3
Build on familiarity to reduce cognitive load and offer choices that doesn't force riders into on path—in busy, fast-paced environments like airports or city streets, riders want to go with the flow. This means leveraging familiar paradigms, offering flexible ways to complete tasks, and clearly setting expectations for what’s next.
Joel 💬 "Waymo hasn't figured that out. They say the same voice over lines over and over and over and over. I mean they have shortened it over the years, but it's still like, I just want to get in the car, leave me alone."
Matt 💬 "It's like at a grocery store. You may have a preconceived idea of what you want to have for dinner, but then you change your mind when you're there.
🤌 Storytelling our learnings through signature moments across physical and digital touchpoints.
[18/24] In cabin : Media
Eric sees a button on the screen to connect his phone to the in-car speakers. He taps 'Connect,' and a QR code appears. Post-pandemic, scanning a QR code feels familiar and intuitive. Within seconds, his phone connects to the car, and his podcast from the plane seamlessly resumes through the speakers.
📌 Insight 3 : Build on familiarity to reduce cognitive load
💬 Joel : "Waymo hasn't figured that out. They say the same voice over lines over and over and over and over. I mean they have shortened it over the years, but it's still like, I just want to get in the car, leave me alone."
📌 Insight 4 : Spacious and personal ride focused on relaxation.
💬 Apoline : "When I first took the Cruise, I thought I could play my own music. I was really disappointed that it was just preset radio. It felt really silly to me that it wasn't a feature. It's so silly."