China Automotive Persona Research and HMI Ideation
Corning
Corning’s Automotive Glass Solutions group engaged Sundberg-Ferar to help them identify and understand various Chinese automotive personae, and develop corresponding concept designs based on identified consumer needs. This project involved first conducting persona research to learn about the quickly evolving Chinese automotive consumer market and identify unique personae, followed by ideation workshops to develop innovative future glass solutions targeted at these personae. The design team then took those concepts and realized them with high impact visuals and storytelling imagery to inspire future product road mapping for the China consumer market.
Market
New Mobility
Chinese consumers are hungry for information and glass is the best material to deliver it.
The team’s persona research unveiled eight unique types, but they clustered into three larger categories similar to most other developed markets. The compelling element of the Chinese market is that because of its sheer volume, even the lowest percent segments, considered niche, are massive in scale with millions of potential customers. This opened opportunity for the design team to create unique solutions, while at the same time gave Corning confidence to develop specific solutions that might not make business sense in other markets. Enabling this development could then also be applied to other global markets where similar needs exist.
Corning: Automotive Glass Solutions
Corning: Automotive Glass Solutions
Chinese consumers are hungry for technology, and even more so for the information technology can deliver. Glass displays offer the richest consumer experience possible and there are many opportunities in the automotive space for Corning to deliver the most premium visual experience in the market.
Human Impact
The Chinese automotive consumer is excited to experience vehicles! Many are first time buyers, or at minimum, first generation buyers. The driving majority is confident and optimistic about the future. In comparison to North America and Europe, they are much more trusting of technology, and autonomous driving. So, whether their hands are on the wheel or not, they expect vehicles to deliver information and entertainment on par with every other piece of technology they experience.
Business Impact
Corning used this persona research to guide their research and development activities for their Chinese engineering teams. At the same time, the concepts from Sundberg-Ferar gave them product targets to fill their pipeline. Since the project, Corning has launched multiple glass solutions unique to the Chinese market, including the curved display on the GAC Aion LX-1.
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