Future Entertainment Concepts

Outcome

An experience where drivers can transfer media from the vehicle to another device for a seamless listening experience.

A cloud based media favorites/preferences approach as the idea of autonomous driving becomes a reality and a car subscription service is utilized.

ConnectedMusic and native support for Spotify
A cloud based entertainment account, global entertainment search, and transformed radio.

Problem

Design a futuristic entertainment concept that users would be able to experience within BMW vehicles in a world where fully autonomous driving is possible.

Many feature and design decisions are passed down to other countries from BMW HQ in Germany. This results in support for certain apps (Deezer, Napster) and a lack of support for what is used in the respective country (Spotify, YouTube Music, etc for USA).

Research: Competitive Analysis, Consumer/User Behavior, Personas

Competitive Analysis

Vehicles with Touchscreen Only

Volvo

Volvo had a touchscreen that was more vertical based. Many of the components were formatted in a list while climate controls were on the bottom.

Porsche

Porsche had a horizontal based head unit. The design of the system was quite similar to BMW’s new iDrive system in regards to menus.

Tesla

Most of the controls for the car are able to be controlled through the screen in Tesla vehicles. Though the screen was big, many of the controls were either deactivated or hard to use while driving.

Vehicles with Touchscreen and Physical Controller

Mercedes Benz

One of the biggest competitors has a dual controller where a user can rest their hand on the controller and control the screen through various methods.

Lexus

Lexus has a touchpad where a user receives a haptic feedback when an element on the screen is being selected.

Infiniti

Having dual screens was an interesting experience to navigate through, especially with their controller. There were multiple ways to get to the same menu.

Consumer/User Behavior

Connectedness is inherent in people’s daily lives; it’s inevitable. They expect to have the ability to listen to music, browse social feeds, discover news, and text and call friends and family anytime and anywhere – at home, at work, running errands, and even in the car. In the age of smartphones and the ‘Internet of Everything,’ people expect a seamless experience as they move from place to place; easily able to pick up what they were doing in one location once they enter the car.

By researching through publicly available data regarding entertainment use within vehicles as well as Tableau for customer behavior, here were the biggest takeaways:

AM/FM Radio is widely used with 82% currently ever used audio source in a surveyor’s primary car in 2017.
Online Radio use has been steadily increasing from 14% in 2014 to 26% in 2017.
Satellite Radio use has also been increasing from 17% in 2017 to 22% in 2017.
People find keeping up to date with music important and they use various sources to do so.
Features are often explored within the vehicle but if the user does not find it useful, they will not use it.

Personas

Tom Smith

Age: 25

Occupation: Drafter/Engineer

Vehicle: Lexus

Location: Ridgefield, NJ

Bio

Tom subscribes to Spotify. He doesn’t listen to Satellite Radio but he sometimes listens to FM. When he is in the car and is not moving, he picks a song on his phone. When he is driving, he uses his native skip button on the car to skip songs until he finds one he likes. If he can’t find a song he likes, he turns on FM and goes to a familiar radio station. If the station is playing a song he doesn’t like, he changes the station. If he is okay with the song he leaves the station on.

Needs/Goals

To be able to listen to what he wants, when he wants
Find familiar radio stations easily to listen to music he enjoys
Be able to navigate through Spotify easily because it is his main audio source

Frustrations

Having to change stations when music he enjoys is not playing
Needing to navigate Spotify on his mobile device while driving
Difficulties when finding the perfect playlist to play while driving

Susan Jones

Age: 27

Occupation: Project Manager

Vehicle: Ford

Location: Brooklyn, NY

Bio

Susan likes all types of music. She usually listens to Spotify when she wants to listen to a specific playlist she has. Sometimes she’ll listen to Pandora or YouTube for various songs that she may not know of that fall under a specific genre. She loves discovering new music but while listening to new music, she’s forced to try to memorize it or save it to a playlist while driving. Also, while driving, sometimes she switches between sources because she wants to be in control or has a specific song she wants to listen to.

Needs/Goals

Find new playlists and discover songs through curated playlists
Find an easier way of saving a new song she likes while listening to the radio
Be able to switch between various entertainment sources easily while driving

Frustrations

Having too many playlists leading to numerous choices
Needing to switch music frequently due to altering moods for music
Difficulty operating mobile apps while driving

Steve Kreed

Age: 33

Occupation: Senior Production Engineer

Vehicles: BMW, Porsche, Toyota

Location: Nutley, NJ

Bio

Steve loves cars. He has multiple cars for various occasions. He drives his BMW for when he wants to have a fun driving experience and to get through inclement weather. He drives the Porsche to go fast on highways and get to his destination quickly. When a destination is close, he will drive his Toyota. He is looking to buy another car in the near future for the right price.

Needs/Goals

Have an easy way to connect his music on the phone to his cars
Easily save all his favorite stations among all cars
To spend less time on his phone to play music he likes so that he can focus on driving

Frustrations

Needing to know how to access his favorites and presets based on different cars
Slow drivers
Sometimes moving cars out of the way to drive the one he wants

Explore: User Flows, Iterations, Wireframes

User Flows

Iterations

Wireframes

Wireframes - ConnectedDrive Sync Apps

The idea behind ConnectedDrive Sync Apps is to have all your entertainment sources and favorite settings tied to your ConnectedDrive account (BMW account) and be able to access them no matter what vehicle you are in.

Wireframes - Global Entertainment Search

Search is an interesting concept to add to the vehicle. By doing so, it will allow users to, not only search on broadcasts, but to also search through individual apps connected to their account.

Wireframes - Radio

Radio is old but Internet radio is fairly new. My wireframes below introduce the idea of keeping AM radio, but in the backend have Internet radio so users will not be able to tell the difference. It also includes saving songs, for music discoverability, and Media Handoff to further connect the car to different devices.

Designs

ConnectedDrive Sync Apps

Global Entertainment Search

Radio

Lessons Learned

Customers have specific needs/wants segmented by age that requires in inclusion of many of the existing entertainment features. Since there are many moving parts within the auto industry, making changes is increasingly difficult, especially since the design is for users who are behind the wheel of a vehicle at high speeds.

People have habits and they have certain entertainment sources that they can’t live without.

A future where people are loyal to the brand and are willing to try multiple vehicles is possible. Introducing a concept where they have the same experience no matter which vehicle would provide a consistent experience.

Redesign for a better UX can happen in the backend as well. The consumer doesn’t necessarily have to see visually what changed, but can experience it in different ways.

Project Overview

BMW USA felt a lack of support for apps that are used by drivers/users in the US market.

My role was to advocate for users in USA in order to facilitate the process of supporting entertainment apps that we use, as well as create a new concept that BMW could use in a world where autonomic driving exists.

Relevant Links:

BMW launches Connected Music, its new in-car music streaming solution

Team

Victor Jimenez – Senior Software Validation Engineer

Stephan Schneider – Senior Project Development Engineer