UI & UX for the car of the future. KARLI & studiokurbos

Within the KARLI project, studiokurbos focuses on optimizing human-machine interaction through the development of user-centered user interfaces and user experiences. The international design studio uses all vehicle, environmental and occupant data generated by a KARLI vehicle.

Authors: Cristián Acevedo and Martin Friedemann

studiokurbos is a design studio with over 40 international colleagues that creates design innovations in Stuttgart and Shanghai, focusing on mobility, UI/UX, and products. The KARLI funding project gives us the opportunity, with our consortium partners from research and development, to contribute to merging the worlds of science and design to make the mobility of the future a reality.

Future-oriented vehicles generate extensive data about the vehicle environment, itself, and the occupants. This data enables us to design new interactions and interfaces between machines and humans. In summary, Big Data and AI open up new possibilities for us to create a user experience, and this is precisely where we see a great opportunity: to develop innovative and high-quality designs for human-machine interaction (MMI) focused on the user’s needs.

After theoretical and conceptual work with use cases and customer journeys, we design a tangible “face” for KARLI that incorporates complex algorithms, data, MMI, and AI and makes them tangible. Additionally, we are developing a virtual test environment in the form of a seat box and 3D glasses and a three-dimensional environment, for research in the validation loop.

We use our expertise in the method development of digital design & development processes. In addition, we contribute our expertise in AR/VR interactions to analyze the effect or perception of design.

Cristián Acevedo explains: “Within my role, I help coordinate tasks and check the design quality of our jobs. Design at studiokurbos is always a team effort of specialists. For example, my colleague Miriam Bottesch brings her experience as a UX designer and project manager to the KARLI project.”

Our passion for high-quality design, new technologies, and user-friendly interaction drives us as a company. Technologies, in particular, are developing so rapidly that we learn new things every day. MMI between vehicle occupants and automated vehicles faces disruptive changes, especially in the new era of e-vehicles and AI. AI techniques also promise a technological leap in developing situational, individual driver-vehicle state models and adaptive and responsive driver-vehicle interactions based on them. These key technologies generate a surge in innovation that is decisive for competition.