Ford/Lincoln 
Spearheading innovation at the Intersection of Luxury and Technology

Overview 
Ford Lincoln, a symbol of American luxury automobiles, embraced the challenge of redefining the user experience in the face of the autonomous driving revolution. The ambition wasn't just to adopt new technology and reimagine the luxury user-car relationship for the forthcoming autonomous era.

The challenge 
Our mission transcended traditional design boundaries, focusing instead on harmonising physical and digital realms within Lincoln's autonomous vehicle simulator.

This wasn't just about technological forefronts; it was about revolutionising the interaction between humans and their vehicles, ensuring an intuitive, luxurious journey from start to finish.

One of several mock up rigs that were built, to test learn and iterate from.

Approach 
Collaborating closely with multidisciplinary teams, I spearheaded the digital experience strategy, ensuring seamless integration with the physical aspects of the simulator.

We didn't just consider the functional changes autonomous driving brought; we delved into the subtle, emotional nuances of relinquishing control to a machine.

Central to this was establishing an experience rationale early on, which became our north star, guiding each design decision and system integration, ensuring a holistic, immersive user journey.

A large number of Ford/Lincoln Execs and Engineering Heads experienced the Autonomous Vehicle Simulator.

Comprehensive experience rationale documentation were developed in parallel - a single source of truth for the project.

The final version of the scenario storyboard, that outlined the whole experience from arrival to end.

Demonstrating the Future:
One of my pivotal roles was translating this visionary project to high-stake stakeholders within Ford Lincoln, including the CEO, CMO, and CTO. Beyond mere presentations, these demonstrations were experiential deep-dives, inviting participants to live the future of autonomous luxury travel and highlighting our innovative solutions in real-time scenarios.

Outcomes
‍The project's innovative approach earned us the Gold IDSA Award in 2018 for Digital Interaction, affirming our success in pioneering an experience that set new industry standards. Notably, our project contributed to over a third of all patents Ford submitted during that period. While specific metrics are confidential, the simulator has become a cornerstone in Ford Lincoln's development of autonomous vehicles, influencing design directions and customer experience strategies.

Patents granted

90+

High Value Experiences
 designed and built

Person team involved,
 over 18 months

Vehicle arrives with seat configuration adjusted to suite

Transparent OLED windows, playing video content

Each and every aspect of the concept was broken down into a deep investigation into the practical next steps for R&D/build, including further descriptions, dependencies, status and issues, relevant client stakeholders. Many of the ideas had already been taken forward into further research and/or patent applications

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