Rear Seat Interface
The research and design of a shared, rear seat climate and comfort touchscreen interface.
Problem
By 2021, select Jaguar Land Rover vehicle trims will include rear seat interface hardware. Designing climate and seat controls inherently become more difficult when brought into a touchscreen interface.
Opportunity
Deliver an on-brand touchscreen user interface for rear seat passenger climate and comfort controls. Build a system that shares consistent patterns with the infotainment system.
Outcome
Prototypes informed by applied research methods that define the intended UX execution for rear seat, shared, passenger controls.
Consolidating the complex
Due to growing complexity of seat adjustment controls and climate settings slated for future models, vehicle program engineers and interior specialists identified the need for a shared, 2nd row touchscreen interface.
Our design group was tasked with researching, defining, and delivering a premium, in-vehicle 2nd row experience. The feature that was my responsibility was seat adjustment.
THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE
Before diving into design, I had to get a sense for how people currently solve the problem of seat adjustment. By researching our current lineup's seat controls and learning more about the our seat variations, I was able to get a sense for the differing levels of functionality.
A major implication we identified was that seat adjustment is inherently more difficult and time consuming when brought into an interface. The standard seat adjustment capacitive switches used by automotive manufacturers are relatively easy to locate and figure out without any prior vehicle knowledge. The work I was doing however, went against this expected behavioral pattern and attempted to forge a new one.
Exploration
After sketching and sharing a bunch of different concepts, we identified 9 variants for 2nd row seat adjustment that we wanted to focus on. By exploring such a broad range of possible interaction patterns and layouts, our team had the confidence to move forward and begin testing our most promising ideas.
Using the headrest control as an example, I placed them side-by-side and held a design review where we discussed the pros and cons of each. We debated how each would impact the flow of making several seat adjustments and how well each mapped to our goal of making the system quick, simple, and intuitive to use.
Articulating Design Decisions
After a lot of debating, the team aligned on this method (below) because it did a the greatest number of things really well.
Design Reasoning
It represented the seat in at an ideal angle that allowed for quick and easy seat area selection.
It accommodated the sharing context by allowing quick toggling to the neighboring passenger controls.
It significantly reduced the number of steps required to make several adjustments in a single visit.
It used "arcade-like" joysticks for seat manipulation that resonated with usability participants.
Seat adjustments could be made without fixating on the screen, significantly reducing motion sickness.
Seats sections contained small indicators that helped users map the interface to the physical world.
It accommodated the simplest and most complex seat packages with the same interface.
It tested best in terms of being considered simple, quick and intuitive to use.
High Fidelity
With the next generation infotainment look and feel being determined, the visual design team interpreted the wireframes in this (below) initial high fidelity execution of our rear seat interface body of work.
Software over the air
The CX vision and strategy for empowering owners with over-the-air software updates.
Digital Transformation
A company-wide commitment to making impactful digital customer experiences.
Interface Design System
The launch of JLR’s first-ever shared design system for the infotainment platform.