Identifying Customer Insights for Autonomous Urban Shuttles – A Methodological Approach

Autoren

Anna-Lena Köhler, MSc., Dr.-Ing. Nico Depner, Prof. Dr. phil. Maximilian Schwalm, Institut für Kraftfahrzeuge (ika), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen;
Dipl.-Kffr. Alexandra Gatzweiler Holz, Ford Research & Advanced Engineering Europe, Aachen

Zusammenfassung

In order to develop successful products, integrating the customer is an important task. Therefore, including the customer and his requirements towards a new product should be conducted as part of early product development phases. However, especially when disruptive product developments come into the picture, gaining valid customer insights is difficult, as participants cannot completely envision the relevant use case itself. To allow customers to get involved in a real situation and retrieve reliable customer insights for a product in a certain use case, Ford and ika applied the methodological approach of using a seating buck in customer co-creation workshops to collect customer insights for vehicle interior components of an autonomous urban shuttle concept. Focus groups of different sociodemographic backgrounds followed transport use cases according to different trip purposes in daily transport to experience these relevant situations vividly. The task was to assemble a prototypical interior concept according to their personal requirements using a seating buck of the shuttle and simple interior elements. First, preferred seating arrangements were analyzed. This was followed by examining participant's ratings of further interior elements like power outlets, stow-away tables, cup holders, seatbelts, and cushions, indicating the desired level of safety and comfort. A list of prioritized items and derived customer insights are subsequently translated into technical specifications for the autonomous urban shuttle.

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