Volkwagen inclusive mobility workshop at DREDF in Berkeley California where we sought to better understand wheelchair accessibility and vehicle design.
VW Inclusive Mobility
UX Design and Research
Our US based team was the global lead for Volkswagen group's Inclusive Mobility Initiative, which partners with disability advocacy and community rights groups. Our mission was to make sure that this new leap forward in automotive technology benefitted those left behind by the current car ownership model.
In my time on the team I delivered successful design packages into the engineering process on topics such as; car seating arrangement, interior accessibility for blind and low vision users (in partnership with Lighthouse for the Blind) and wheelchair access and securement.
2018 -> 2021
Key Methods. Focus Groups, Co-Design, Ethnographic Research, Experience Prototyping, Engineering Integration
New vehicle development timeline example, showing how early in development major decisions get impacted.
Project Information
Inclusive Mobility project sprints were on 2-6 month time frames around specific; engineering impact points, disability rights groups, or user journey topics. The goal was to help deliver design and research insights into the early stage engineering process for new vehicles being developed on a 5-7 year timeframe.
In my 3 years I both lead the design and the overall project management on multiple project sprints. Some projects I lead and/or worked on included the topics of wheelchair ingress/egress, seating and interior handle placement for people with limited mobility, tactile design of safety features for non-visual interaction, interior features for wheelchair transfer and securement.