The Nest
A safer driving experience for parents
Client
BMW
Year
2019
Role
User Research
Design Conceptualisation
Design Field
Human-centered Design
Product Design
Our busy lives often require us to hustle between tasks. For families with young children, this can often mean driving back and forth between work, home, and school.
According to a New York Times article published in 2017, the most common cause of death in children under the age of 15 is an unintentional injury most commonly caused by car accidents. One of the major causes for this - divided attention while driving and simultaneously interacting with a child in the car.
This project was thus a prompt for an in-car service with the intention of helping parents to pay attention to their child’s needs while keeping a watch on the road.
We named our product ‘The Nest’ to recreate a feeling of security and safety in the car.
DEFINING THE PROBLEM
Product Field Mapping
Keeping the user at the heart of the process, we visualised our ideas and in a product field map.
Some of the questions at the primitive stages of our concept creation were
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What do car-makers aim for when producing cars today for their buyers?
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Who are the buyers today, is it possible to categorize them?
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What is the trend that has triggered a shift from car-buying to mobility-services?
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If people tend to change cars often, can we create a concept/product/service that can be used by them irrespective of the car they are using, whether it is a rental, a company car, a family car or a sports car?
Brainstorming thoughts and ideas to visualise the concept
This exercise helped us frame our key goal and the problem we were trying to solve:
How might we support families (customers) to enhance the adaptability of their existing car (need) without buying a new car (barrier).
DEFINING THE USER
Field Research Insights
What unsolved problems do parents deal with while driving, which make their experience uncomfortable on a daily basis?
Questionnaires
- safety systems
- communication tools
- in- built parking assistant cameras
- entertainment
- comfort & space
- robust seat materials
Surveys
- comfort,
- space,
- communication tools
- entertainment,
- safety systems
Interviews
- a second mirror to see the child in the back
- ample storage space for long-distance trips
- ways to interact with children without multimedia screens
Direct observation
- eye contact while interacting with the child
- ergonomically designed space
- keeping the child engaged
Research & Data Analysis
We analysed our data to identify the needs which frequently reflected in our research.
Based on this analysis, we could define the key user needs we wanted to solve.
“Would it be possible to see my child while driving without turning my back?”
Connection
Parents and their children want to feel connected to each other
Eye-Contact
Parents felt the need to make eye-contact with their infants or toddlers in rear-facing child safety seats
CONCEPTUALISING THE SOLUTION
Triple Diamond Model
The visual representation of our insights and data in a triple diamond model gave us a thorough overview of the process.
Design Sprint
This exercise acted as a catalyst in streamlining the solution conceptualisation..
This led to the development of a camera system consisting of 2 cameras: A front camera that would capture the driver and a rear camera that would capture the occupants in the backseat. A screen that could be projected on the windscreen in front of the driver would show the visuals captured by the rear camera.
We called our product
“The Nest”.
PROTOTYPING
In addition to a baby camera and a heads-up display - we prototyped The Nest's app that gives the user remote access to the physical units of The Nest.
The safety feature of the App helps the user decide who can be directly informed in the event of an accident or emergency.
It also has the feature of automatically calling one immediate emergency contact which is identified by the user
THE EXPERIENCE LOOP
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
By understanding the importance of closeness and a bond through eye contact between a mother and her child, whether on or off-road, we created “The Nest” to ensure that this bond was not compromised on the grounds of safety and security.
A seamless driving experience would involve being in control of when you want to turn on and off the camera, the screen in front of you and also the opportunity of keeping a watch on the interiors of your car because “The Nest” is fully integrated with your smartphone.