Ruchika Jajodia, Ex-UX manager at Aston Martin, shares her journey designing UX for luxury cars including team building, research, and real-world tools like ProtoPie.
This episode of Down & Dirty with Dr. T features an exciting conversation with Ruchika Jajodia.
Ruchika is a UX Design expert with prior experience at top brands like Aston Martin, JLR, and Dyson. She specializes in UX strategy, research, and human-centered design. Over her three years at Aston Martin, she built a 17-member UX team from scratch, starting as the only designer!
This episode explores the world of UX in the automotive industry, specifically focusing on the unique challenges and processes involved in designing user experiences for luxury vehicles.
Episode Highlights:
Day in the life: Ruchika walks us through a day in the life of a UX manager—from tracking tasks on agile boards and attending alignment meetings to driving research and development for new features and using the right tools to get stakeholder buy-in.
It's all in the research: Ruchika details the extensive research process in the automotive industry. The entire project can take up to three years and involves customer clinics, simulator testing, and iterative design improvements.
ProtoPie for buy-in: Ruchika demonstrates through screenshare how tools like ProtoPie are used to create interactive demos, allowing stakeholders to experience features before implementation, which helps in gaining buy-in.
Challenges in UX of luxury cars: Ruchika shares the challenges that arise as a UX manager, the biggest one being stakeholders changing their minds, which can impact the design process and timelines.
