The Next Generation Mobility Experience
Waymo: Product & Brand Refresh
Role
Product & Visual Designer, Contract
Timeline
Feb 2023 - May 2023
Team
Cal UMA Design Team
Waymo Brand Designers
Skills
Product Design
Brand Design
Marketing Design
Competitor Research
Tools
Figma
Photoshop
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Waymo seeks design solutions to captivate riders and steer the future of mobility.
PROJECT SCOPE
Waymo seeks to revamp its brand identity as they transitions from R&D to a commercial entity in order to captivate a broader audience, particularly the future generation of riders, like Gen Z.
BACKGROUND
Waymo One is Waymo’s autonomous ride-hailing service.
Waymo LLC, started in 2009 as the Google-Self Car Project, specializes in fully autonomous driving technology to enhance safer mobility. Their main product is Waymo One, the first fully self-driving ride-hailing service.
A LITTLE MORE BACKGROUND
What’s the word on the road?
USER SURVEYS
To gather insights into Gen-Z’s values and feelings toward self-driving vehicles, we conducted 600+ user surveys to consider:
TAKEAWAY 1
46% of Gen Z find trustworthiness the most appealing brand characteristic of a ride-hailing service.
PROBLEM
Waymo must build trust for the safety of their self-driving technology amongst new users.
Waymo pioneers the rideshare industry with fully autonomous driving technology as the key to vehicle safety.
HOWEVER
As a new commercial entity, many riders remain apprehensive about the safety of self-driving cars. Waymo seeks solutions to build trust among new users.
THEREFORE, WE ASK
HMW enhance Waymo’s brand identity to build trust and resonate with the values and expectations of Gen Z mobility users?
RESEARCH
Who’s steering the future?
COMPETITVE RESEARCH
To understand how Waymo can enhance their brand identity, we first need to consider their brand positioning in the rideshare market. So we conducted competitive research into the top 6 competitors of Waymo.
We considered factors including each brand's mission statement, brand positioning, brand personality, verbal identity, and advertising strategy.
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Waymo’s competitors focus on safety, convenience, customizability, and community.
COMPETITVE ANALYSIS
Leverage shared values like safety, convenience, and customizability to gain trust across the rideshare industry.
SYNTHESIS
HYPOTHESIS
Waymo should uphold a trustworthy and reliable reputation, while emphasizing a humanized ride experience to appeal to riders.
SOLUTIONS
Waymodes
Customizable interfaces for a personalized ride experience.
This feature allows riders to customize their ride experience by adjusting the lighting, acoustics, and in-cabin preferences, all while allowing passengers to check their estimated arrival time, route, location, volume, and climate settings for maximum comfort and enjoyability.
Four unique modes tailored to Waymo’s diverse riders
Riders can customize modes through Normal Car, Sleepy, Music Lover, and Work Hustler.
Normal Car offers the default settings you're already familiar with, such as the map and destination.
CONCEPT MODE 1
Sleepy
Leverage night mode to appeal to Gen-Z’s emerging lifestyle.
An ambient night time experience integrated with the car interface keeping the lights down low and an option to turn the noise off. Set a sleep timer for those perfect car naps.
CONCEPT MODE 2
Music Lover
Personalize the ride with car karaoke.
Connect via Bluetooth to play your favorite car tunes. Click the mic to see the lyrics to your favorite song and sing your heart out in the privacy of your very own ride.
CONCEPT MODE 3
Work Hustler
Make good use of your time to get work done.
Pair your workspace with Waymo's car interface through the Waymo app to see your calendar and notifications when you step foot into the car. Traveling to your next meeting can now become a place of productivity.
SOLUTIONS
Brand Refresh
A refreshingly fun and humanized look for building trust with new riders.
BRAND IDENTITY + PHOTOGRAPHY
We also designed mock-up billboards and collages for Waymo’s brand refresh, aligning with Gen Z’s values for an organic, fun, and human feel to build trust with new riders.
Night Ride Billboard
Leverage night mode to appeal to Gen-Z’s emerging lifestyle. Like the Sleepy Waymode, this billboard utilizes night mode to appeal to younger demographics, emphasizing convenience and safety on a night out.
Paper Collage Photography
Reduced saturation and mixed medias humanize Waymo’s technology and express a less sterile environment.
REFLECTION
My first time designing for a bigger company...
This project was a great first time experience working with a bigger design team (12 designers) and consulting for a larger company. The project itself was very flexible in its’ end products, with our research guiding us to discover our design solutions.
Looking back, more time for user testing would have been ideal to refine our ideations. Since this was a two-fold project, conducting a longer study would have allowed us to reiterate our designs for a better user experience.
Nonetheless, this project was an enriching experience and set forth the foundation for many of my future design processes!
