When exploring the nebulous space of future mobility, we embrace the ambiguity in a light-hearted way and use it to build and show ideas through art. Our prototypes are unconventional and thought provoking (hopefully!).
Every decision Ford makes, from physical design to marketing, builds their brand promise to the world. Similarly, our promise to Ford was to distill the important aspects of the mobility experience.
Whether they’ve been driving a Ford for decades, or it’s just now appearing on their radar, every person’s perceptions of the automotive giant are shaped by their past experiences. This made for interesting contrasts that laid the groundwork of our exploration, from cool and reliable to questionable and stuffy.
This was the underlying principle that guided our exploration. Our first task was to determine how to fill in the blank. This posed a greater challenge: how to answer the question we had created for ourselves.
Can we uncover a user's hidden data, transforming numbers and matrices into artful representations of their journeys.
Cars (especially as we move to autonomous and shared systems) should understand and react to riders' physiological and belonging needs.
A common tradition within Stanford is to shorten names to their first syllables (CoHo for Coffee House and MemChu for Memorial Church). We thought a natural marriage between Ford and Stanford culture would be to “Stanford-ify” the Ford Project into “FoPro”
What would you want to know? What would you tell it (him? Her? Them?) We loved asking this question because we never knew what to expect, but the results were always delightful.
The rare alignment we have found in our team while honing in on learnings through stories, prototypes, and language.
There is unmet motivation behind types of travel that go beyond time and money (social, scenery, traffic...) that are sacrificied when choosing transportation. We should focus on these motivations when choosing the best mode.
People who own cars are often highly attached to the random things they store in their trunks and back seats from sunflower seeds to favorite blankets.
Moving towards a future of standardized fleets of cars, it is important to think of the MANY people whose journeys don't fit in this model (i.e. Dog Owners, New Parents, Explorers...)