Designing a brand new platform for Ford and Lincoln vehicles
Devin Jeffery
How it started
"We're going to rebuild our system from scratch using Android Automotive… we don't really know what that means"
I joined the in-vehicle experience team at Ford just as they were transitioning away from sending Photoshop files to engineers. Each vehicle got its own unique design language and the systems were built by stacking pngs.
We started digging in and sharing out what we learned
At the time, only one vehicle had launched with Android Automotive… the Polestar 2. We had no clue how much control we'd have over theming and customization of their layouts. 2 other newly hired designers and I started deep diving into Google's documentation and videos of the Polestar to see what we could do with this new platform.
We got teams working together
Engineers were trying to figure out what the new platform meant for them too
Before we joined, design and engineering were working in vacuums. Engineers would get InVision links and Photoshop files sent to them and designers wouldn't talk to until the features were built months later.
While we were learning as much as we could about Android Automotive, we set out to change this and formed a cross-functional design system team with engineers. We met weekly throughout the next year to stay aligned, break things together, and share our vision for the future.
We ended up building Ford and Lincoln's first themeable, platform-agnostic design system
Jack and I got a start on this together over that first year. He took it to the finish line while I went on to lead product design for the new system.
A scrappy 6 person design team
I was fortunate enough to lead product design for the '24 Lincoln Nautilus and the '25 Ford Explorer touch screens
I set up weekly crits and regular standups for our design team to help to coordinate across all features to make sure we were building a cohesive experience on this new platform.
While coordinating all of that work, I was also leading the design for:
Home screen
Phone + messaging apps
Settings menu
System UI
We saved the company millions
Before we had such an efficient process and design system, Ford use to have BIG OL' contracts with agencies to help "productionize" our screens to prepare them for engineering.
5 designers are now able to do the work that would have required 2 different agencies before.
I'm not allowed to share my design files, but I can share YouTube videos
Reflection
I came from designing websites at a 10 person startup, this was a surreal experience
It's hard to overstate how much I grew as a designer during my time here. I'm extremely proud of everything our team accomplished over these few years.
I ultimately decided to move on so I could grow some new muscles that I hadn't been able to yet. I wanted to get more experience working with product, conducting user research, and working with Data. That's what brought me over to Indeed.
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Posted May 3, 2023
Worked closely with 3d designers, product designers, and engineers to build an innovative new in-vehicle experience
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