Design language
Knowing that the DriveStyle demo would be shown in a 2014 CLA250 with red trim interior, I drew inspiration from the car interior and exterior so that the visual design of the screens had context with its surroundings and was not out of place. The red accents from the seat were brought into the UI as highlight colors. The circular air vents were echoed in the frames around the profile pics and the buttons. The iconic diamond grill was repeated in the background.

After establishing the style of the head unit UI, I progressed to designing the DriveStyle app. Again, thinking of its surrounding context, I wanted the app to have a flatter UI design within the context of the smartphone. The UX team, in the end, did not choose my design but it did open up possibilities in a new design language and an opportunity that led me to join the team one year later.

Team Leadership
I soon joined the Mercedes-Benz UX team team as Senior Manager of Advanced UX design. With the team, I continued to formalize the design language via researching car interiors, racing video games, and app design trends. With each design project, we began to connect each touchpoint of the driver experience into one holistic design vision.

Highlight Video
In order to showcase Sunnyvale studio capabilities and design progress at an annual design meeting at Stuttgart, I decided the best way to communicate our design vision was through a story. Inspired by the driver journey, I conceived a video script that connected each of the studio projects from Mercedes companion app, Apple Watch, to head unit experience. I worked with the video production company on casting, car rental, shooting location, and budget. The video had to be on par with a Mercedes-Benz commercial, and the production company delivered on time and under budget. It was well-received by the executive team and helped promote why connected apps were an essential part of the driver experience.

3D Realtime for MBUX

Working on the early stages of the driver journey allowed me to also help drive part of what became to be known as “MBUX”. During my time at MBRDNA, I led the early stages of the 3d realtime process for displaying realtime 3D data visualization in vehicle functions. Coordinating with teams in Stuttgart and Sunnyvale was by far the most difficult challenge in my role. In hindsight, the communication could have been better facilitated with online collaboration tools such as Invision (or Figma) which would have allowed us to work more together across time zones and cultures.