Challenge
The complexity, ambition, and speed of today’s automotive industry is unprecedented. For industry players, the pressures of time-to-market continue to grow while the unpredictability of new technology makes it harder to plan for disruptive change. All the while, the industry has only begun to scratch the surface on how the evolving idea of mobility will redefine customer need.
Focus
The first goal was to help the 3M Automotive Electrification Program define the opportunity areas for our Human Machine Interface-related technology to play in this rapidly evolving market. The second goal was to understand how best to engage our key audience segments in this space.
Methodologies
Secondary research, expert interview, journey mapping workshop, persona development, user interview
My role
Workshop facilitation, participant recruiting, budget management, research recommendations and planning, discussion guide design, interview moderation, data synthesis, report writing, strategic recommendations
Process
Secondary research – I wanted to gain an early understanding of the automotive industry and provide a foundation for a more nuanced assessment of any future primary research results. I began by immersing myself in publicly available data on both general automotive trends and potential implications of those trends on consumers.
Expert Interview – After getting rooted in the data available, it was time to adjust my lens to a 3M focus and begin to uncover our differentiated opportunities in this space. I sought out industry experts both internal and external and designed the discussion guide with the objective of understanding their role in the industry, key language used to describe what is they do, their motivations, behaviors, key language, and ideas about the future of mobility. Additionally, I aimed to spend some time with internal experts to better understand the technologies under development for this application and the context behind the approach. In total, I spoke to 15 participants globally in remote sessions that lasted 60-90 minutes each.
Journey Mapping/Persona Development – With a growing database of secondary and primary data points, I needed a way to simplify and share my key insights. I highlighted these initial findings with both a journey map and a persona board to establish a holistic understanding of our audience, identify opportunities to improve that experience, and visualize a future state to spur innovation.
Stakeholder workshop – At this point, it was time lean on my stakeholders. I recruited a diverse group of participants within the Automotive Electrification Program from marketers to research scientists to join me for a 2-day workshop. Our agenda included an in-depth review of the secondary data followed by participatory exercises in validating and iterating our key personas and their journey maps. In the end, we were also able to identify our gaps in understanding that served as a starting point for additional primary research.
User interview – Now, it was time for some in-depth discussions with target users. With the help of the sales team, I was able to recruit 21 participants for a mix of in-person and remotely conducted interviews. I designed the discussion guide with the goal of understanding their biggest challenges, common language used to describe their role, where they go for inspiration or industry leaders they look to, and key touch points in their journey. Additionally, I was able to get feedback on the 3M technology demonstrations my technical counterparts provided for the onsite participants.
Primary Research Findings
“It is creating something together so we can learn and grow” - Head of Advanced Interior Design at Tier-1 Automotive company based in the US
Customers don’t always know what they are going to be tasked with solving: Engineers and designers working on the cars of the future are navigating a space with a high degree of ambiguity so they might not have even identified what the next challenge to solve for will be.
Internal language doesn’t translate to the customer: the term “HMI” is being used in a very specific context in our current messaging but, it means a few different things to customers depending on their area of expertise. The most common factor across any application is the emphasis on designing the ideal user experience (crisp displays, seamless integrations, interior interactivity, etc.).
The priority of touch points in the user journey needs to shift: our audience is engaging with mediums that had neither been prioritized in our preliminary efforts nor areas we currently participant in.
No matter the persona, the key pain point remains the same: There is an overwhelming pressure to quickly innovate and be the first to get it to market.
Recommendations
Customers don’t always know what they are going to be tasked with solving:
Demonstrations of the technology are incredibly powerful to show the possibility of solutions that can be collaboratively explored…use these as a platform for co-creating solutions with customers, bench-to-bench, in order to achieve something new and of value as the trend occurs because the future is unpredictable.
Internal language doesn’t translate to the customer:
Tree testing and a card sort would be useful to help us categorize information using language that resonates with our key customer base.
Shift the messaging to communicate how our technology contributes to end-user experience and not just technology performance.
The priority of touch points in the user journey needs to shift as well as our messaging to address their biggest pain points:
Provided a revised journey/touch point map as a vehicle for delivering an aligned communication strategy in the areas with the highest potential for early impact.