CLIENT: HIGH RES HYPE FOR NISSAN
Contextual Cockpit.
A dash-wide display for a Nissan electric concept car — four features no luxury car offered together in 2018, designed to work as one drive.
CLIENT
High Res Hype for Nissan
ROLE
Lead UX Designer
TIMELINE
May 2018 – Oct 2019
Los Angeles, CA - global team
DISCIPLINES
Market & competitive research, interaction design, multi-screen HMI, visual direction
2
RESEARCH
Where the market was heading.
The brief was feature-heavy. The job was to make many features feel like one car — on one very wide screen.
Nissan's concept was an electric car with driver assistance, a virtual copilot and recognition of whoever got in. All of it had to live on a single display stretching across the dashboard, alongside the basics of driving: speed, range, route and music.
I led UX design: researching the market the car was aimed at, shaping the visual direction, and working with the team on how each feature appeared over the course of a drive.
01
CHALLENGE
02
RESEARCH
I started from the market: in 2018, China was where electric cars and luxury buyers were growing fastest.
1.26m
New energy vehicles sold in China in 2018 — the first year past one million (CAAM)
½+
China's share of global EV sales — more than the rest of the world combined
33%
Chinese consumers' share of global luxury spending
(Bain–Altagamma, 2018)
METHOD A
Market trends
Trends in China within in-car and other emerging technology.
METHOD B
Competitive analysis
Benchmarked competitors' multi-screen cabins: what they showed, to whom, and how.
METHOD C
Moodboard & direction
Built the moodboard and aligned the design direction with High Res Hype's creative director.
03
THE GAP
FEATURE 1
Virtual copilot
Demand: Chinese buyers rated voice and connected features highly.
Gap: In-car voice scored worst in its category, and assistants like NOMI and MBUX spoke mainly to the driver.
FEATURE 2
AD/ADAS
Demand: Chinese trust in self-driving jumped within a year — and leaned toward tech-led brands over traditional car makers.
Gap:The only Level 3 system was on a combustion Audi A8, waiting on regulators.
FEATURE 3
Energy regeneration
Demand: Charging and range were buyers' biggest worries about EVs.
Gap: Recuperation was sold as an engineering figure. No car coached the driver on it or showed the range won back.
FEATURE 4
Multi-user
Demand: A phone link was Chinese owners' top wish for their next car.
Gap:Cars offered one phone on one central screen. Recognising each person existed in private jets, not cars.
Sources: CAAM, Bain–Altagamma, Deloitte Global Automotive Consumer Study, J.D. Power China (Jan and Jul 2018), China Youth Daily, Audi.
Each feature existed somewhere. No luxury car in 2018 brought all four together.
NIO's ES8 came closest among EVs, with a copilot and driver assistance but no screens for passengers. Audi split its strengths across two different cars. That gap became the brief for the concept's display.
04
DESIGN
STEP 1 - MULTI-USER
The car knows who got in
A facial scan recognises the driver and loads their profile.
STEP 2 - VIRTUAL COPILOT
Choose a copilot
Each copilot is rated for speed, efficiency and composure, so the driver picks the style of help they want.
STEP 3 - ENERGY REGENERATION
Range, won back on the hill
On an incline, the left zone shows energy being recovered - turning an engineering figure into something the driver can see.
STEP 4 - ADAS
What the car sees
Radar detection lights up around the car when another vehicle comes close, in the same zone as speed.
Rather than a menu of features, the concept tells one trip — so each feature appears when the drive calls for it, then steps back.
Market & competitive analysis
CHINA FOCUS
Drive storyboard & flows
START TO PARK
Moodboard
VISUAL DIRECTION
Screen states
MANUAL - AUTO - PARKED
STEP 5 - AD
Auto takes over
In Auto, the view pulls back to the city around the car, with landmarks along the route.
STEP 6 - ARIVAL
Plan the stop on the way
Near the destination, the screen offers parking and event bookings, then guides the car into the garage.
STILLS FROM THE TEAM'S PROTOTYPE
05
OUTCOME
The team built a working prototype of one drive, bringing together four features the 2018 market kept apart.
My contribution was the groundwork it stood on: the market and competitive research that identified the four features, and the moodboard that set the visual direction.
Looking back: I pushed for a calmer screen with fewer motion graphics. The final visual direction went another way — that was the client's call. It sharpened a principle I still design by: motion should signal a change, not decorate the screen.
NEXT CASE STUDY — 04 / 04 · ANDROID AUTOMOTIVE OS