{"id":67867,"date":"2024-11-25T12:26:21","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T11:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/?p=67867"},"modified":"2024-11-25T12:26:21","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T11:26:21","slug":"ford-a-new-studio-for-the-human-centred-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/2024\/11\/ford-a-new-studio-for-the-human-centred-design\/","title":{"rendered":"FORD, A NEW STUDIO FOR THE “HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ford has integrated its research-focused innovation unit formerly called D-Ford into the global design team and rebranded it Human Centred Design. The team, working under Usha Raghavachari, has opened a new studio in east London alongside existing studios in Detroit and Shanghai with the aim of fast-tracking physical and software innovations to new vehicles. The new facility brings together HDC with Ford\u2019s London advanced design team, which traces its history back to J Mays\u2019 famed Ingeni studio in central London. D-Ford \u2013 named in homage to Stanford University\u2019s famed D-School in California \u2013 was set up away from Ford\u2019s corporate structures to operate much like a start-up. \u201cTypically a big company rejects everything,\u201d Raghavachari told Auto&Design on a recent visit to the studio. \u201cD-Ford has educated the entire company on how to think differently.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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The Human Centred Design team comes under the supervision of Amko Leenarts, director of design at Ford of Europe, who in turn reports directly to Todd Willing, the new head of Ford Design. Leenarts wants to use the team to drive innovation in the new \u2018hero\u2019 line-up of vehicles Ford is developing as it moves away from its past as a generalist car company to a smaller, more specialist manufacturer in Europe. \u201cThe essence of the vehicle is no longer purely focused on the hardware, but more focused on what you’re going to do with it,\u201d Leenarts said. He gave the example of the Transit van (\u201ca tool to drive productivity\u201d) and the Bronco off-roader (\u201ca tool for adventure\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Much of D-Ford\/HDC\u2019s work so far has been on the vans. The team\u2019s biggest success has been the tilting steering wheel that debuted as an option on the new Transit Custom one-tonne van. The solution allows drivers to turn the wheel into a desk and was devised after finding out exactly how Transit owners use their vehicle. \u201cWe spend literally thousands of hours doing what I call super-stalking research,\u201d Raghavachari said. \u201cWe go to their homes, we go to their construction site, we drive with them\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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The HDC teams have honed their methods to quickly develop prototypes. \u201cWe make hundreds of them,\u201d Raghavachari said \u201cThey’re not the super-fancy prototypes that Amko will make. They’re made of cardboard. We make them quickly and they cost 10s of dollars, not thousands.\u201d Potential users are invited into the studio to interact with the prototypes of new or improved feature, mocked up on a vehicle rig. Development of the tilting wheel was driven in part by one specific UK van driver, Dave, who had created his own desk on the centre console using an old bedside table. Ford initially made him a table for the passenger side, but Dave kept looking over to the driver\u2019s seat. \u00abHe said \u2018well this is great, but that’s my seat\u2019,\u201d Raghavachari said. \u201cWhat we realised is that van drivers often park in slightly haphazard places. The minute they see a police car or a traffic warden, they need to scarper quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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The team is now moving on from vans to cars, where the challenge to greater. \u201cIt\u2019s more about simple desire and that\u2019s a lot harder to put money behind,\u201d Leenarts said. Some solutions are obvious, for example the requirement from certain Chinese customers to sleep in their car. Others will focus on more the intersection between software and hardware. \u201cThe industry talks a lot about the transition to electrification. Actually what’s going to have a bigger impact I think is the transition to software defined vehicles,\u201d Leenarts said. The customer research carried out by the HCD team will help discover what software elements will ultimately be just a gimmick and what customers will actually pay for. \u201cDesigners need inspiration, right?\u201d Raghavachari said. \u201cWithout it, it’s really hard to then connect with the people that you’re trying to solve for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1144,"featured_media":67863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[458,990,1217],"class_list":["post-67867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-extra-en","tag-ford-en","tag-ford-design-en","tag-ford-design-en-2"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 12:42:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67869,"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67867\/revisions\/67869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}