Umeå universitets logga

Inspiration

The project explores the possibility of using the car as a social communication space, providing an opportunity for users to make more new friends during their daily commute. With the popularization of mobile media, nowadays people are more and more like to communicate with people on social platforms, and virtual network social needs have been deeply rooted in people’s daily life, so how to use technology to help people walk out from this small screen is the initial motivation of the project.Everyone stays inside their vehicle and even if they are close, they rarely have the opportunity to communicate with people next to them. The car looks like a closed moving box where everyone hides inside. The project takes this as a starting point to consider how to break this status and provide users with an opportunity to express themselves and find friends on the daily commute. Therefore, the author believes that the car, as a personal mobile space, can also be turned into a social platform with the help of technology.

Process

During the design process, the author divides the whole project into two parts for thinking. On the one hand, the author has been thinking about how to provide a more interesting way of socializing in a limited space like a car, just like using social software, users can pay attention to the interesting people passing by and have the opportunity to have face-to-face communication. On the other hand, in the whole process, users can use a more abstract Avatar to show their characteristics or hobbies, as well as protect their privacy. The author combines these two core issues, and after the process of research, ideation, and sketch, the entire interior frame is determined on the 3D software, after which the final design is obtained.

Result

The final result is the ZEEKR 00+, a small two-seater electric car, which encourages users to actively express themselves on a daily car journey and make more friends in the real world. The core circular rotating structure of the cockpit can achieve the discovery, communication, and interaction process between users. With this as the core, the author also designed a series of related visual images, creating a new concept of the car as a personalized and social communication space in the future.1