Product Challenges

As an experience designer at BMW Technology I needed to consider the driver’s entire ecosystem. The Connected App needed to feel cohesive with the vehicle, but also take advantage of and integrate with other technology that drivers used, and of course, not distract from the drive.

BMW’s research showed that most of our customers (predictably) used Google Maps or other external sources to find addresses for new places they planned to navigate to, but still enjoyed using onboard navigation. We solved how to use the touchpoints we could control - mobile app, Alexa, smart watch, and vehicle (to a limited extent) - to make that process easier.

Design Goals

In-vehicle navigation systems are notoriously difficult to use. Cars last longer than mobile devices and they have a slower build cycle. Technology that is top-of-the-line starts to become outdated as soon as a vehicle enters a dealer’s lot. BMW’s Connected App strives to fill this gap by accommodating users with technology that’s as new as their latest iPhone.

Our app needed to create a single, complementary experience between modern mobile expectations and the past several years of varied vehicle technology.

Results

Fortunately, the vehicle is BMW’s primary product so I was able to advocate for helping customers reach their goals even if it counter intuitively meant spending less time in our app.

I designed a streamlined experience for using our app (backgrounded) to transfer addresses into a vehicle’s navigation. I architected it so that different connection types on different onboard technologies maintained a consistent experience. I also designed it to contextualize whether the user is already in their vehicle or planning a trip from their couch. The elements fit right in to the IOS native sharesheet experience.

This new process was the highlight of the release.