How might we use augmented reality to transform autonomous rideshare travel into meaningful opportunities for connection?
♦ Proposed using location-based AR gameplay to spark interaction between passengers. The concept helped shape our project’s direction.
♦ Help translate the concept into a high-fidelity prototype in Figma, designing interactive screens that mapped to key user flows including onboarding, gameplay, and post-ride engagement.
Meet Mia, a 39-year-old single mother who works as a nurse in Los Angeles. She struggles with balancing her demanding job and finding meaningful time to spend with her 12-year-old daughter, Farah.
We aimed to redefine what a vehicle could become by harnessing the potential of augmented reality.
We booked a ride on the Waymo app from the Center for Media and Design to Trader Joes in Downtown Santa Monica. We noticed that the ride was extremely smooth overall except for the pickup and drop off location.
Before settling on a topic, we conducted user interviews and desktop research to understand the current landscape of autonomous vehicles.
We proposed two concepts to the BMW team.
1. Gozo: Strengthening Bonds Between Single Moms and their children.
2. Kizuna: Supporting single moms on the go as a babysitting service.
We used a service blueprint to map the full user journey alongside technical and operational touchpoints, which helped identify gaps and ensure a seamless experience from booking to drop-off.
We conducted 15-minute usability tests with over 10 groups of two to evaluate the Gozo prototype, focusing on task completion, ease of navigation, and user interaction. Insights gathered through structured tasks and follow-up questions informed key design improvements and validated core user flows.
We presented our vision video and full prootype to the BMW team.
We designed an experience that connects multiple digital and physical touchpoints.
Car Interior Design: The campfire seating configuration fosters a sense of connection by positioning passengers to face one another, encouraging natural conversation during the ride.
Main Dashboard: Passengers can personalize their ride using the central console to play collaborative games like Gozo Trivia or view a real-time map of their journey. Designed to promote a phone-free experience, the console also features a dedicated compartment that charges, sanitizes, and securely stores personal devices.
Gozo Triva AR Experience: An AR game designed to spark connection by guiding passengers to collaboratively answer trivia questions based on real-world landmarks along their route.
Rewind the Ride: This feature offers a fun way to relive the ride experience, viewable directly through the user's mobile app.
We discovered a deep desire for connection among modern families. Through our research, we found a clear disconnect between how much families value their time together and how much time they actually spend with one another.
According to a 2023 Pew Research Center study, 73% of U.S. adults say family time is a top priority.
However according to a 2023 Pew Research Center study, families only spend roughly 53 minutes of quality time together per day.
According to the National Institutde of Health, children in these families spend about 5 hours less per week with their parent compared to two-parent households.
To promote connection among passengers, the vehicle encourages users to put away their phones for the duration of the ride upon entering.
The main dash features games to spark connection and includes a prompt guiding users to transition seamlessly to the AR game on the window.
Users can view a real a real-time route map of their journey.
Passengers can revisit pictures taken, view trivia results, and see how they performed on the leaderboard anytime on the app.
Our concept began with the story of a single mom and her daughter booking a Gozo ride.
Our team conducted three separate rounds of usability tests with our peers, professors, and staff from BMW.
To create conditional logic for a trivia-based game in Figma, we designed separate screens and components for each possible outcome based on the user’s selections. For the difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard), we created three distinct variants of a question component, each corresponding to a different difficulty. In prototype mode, we set up interactions where, depending on the user’s choice of difficulty, the question would change accordingly—an "easy" question leads to an easier answer path, while "medium" and "hard" paths present more challenging questions.
Additionally, we implemented conditional logic for hints by incorporating three types: 50/50, image, and text. For each question, we created buttons that, when clicked, trigger the appropriate hint based on the selected difficulty. For example, if the user selects the "50/50" hint, two incorrect answers are removed. If they select the "image" hint, an image related to the question appears, and the "text" hint provides a written clue. Each hint was mapped to ensure it only appeared when selected, and the transitions between hints and question screens were smoothed using smart animation. By using variants and interactions, we were able to simulate conditional logic, enabling a dynamic, customized trivia game experience based on user choices and hint selections.
The tutorial quickly walks the user through the game in a short and engaging manner.
Users must select the question difficulty level before answering a question.
There are three hint options: 50/50, Image hint, and text hint.
To transition between the AR game to the mobile app, we created screens to wrap up the experience.
Gozo Trivia challenged me to reimagine the in-car experience as a space for connection rather than isolation, using speculative design to transform autonomous travel into a shared, interactive journey. I designed conditional logic in Figma to create dynamic question flows based on difficulty levels and hint types (50/50, image, text), ensuring that the gameplay responded intuitively to user choices. Through usability testing and iterative feedback, I refined the experience to make it more accessible and engaging. Designing across multiple touchpoints—including an AR interface, in-car console, and mobile app—helped me craft a cohesive and inclusive experience. Ultimately, Gozo became more than just a game—it represented my vision of future mobility, a space for meaningful connection.