How UX Research is Revolutionising In-Car Experiences

Episode Timestamps

0:00 – Introduction & Guest Introduction

2:27 – Ruchika’s Journey in Automotive UX Research

4:50 – How Connected Cars Are Changing the Driving Experience

9:59 – The Rise of Autonomous Vehicles & Trust Challenges

13:10 – UX Research Methods for In-Car Experiences

22:00 – Common Challenges in Automotive UX & How to Overcome Them

24:42 – How UX Research Tools Are Evolving

30:27 – Advice for Aspiring Automotive UX Researchers

33:18 – Closing Thoughts

Main Insights From The Conversation

“Automotive research is a very, very big area and quite intense as well, because anything that we design has to be road-safe for our people and has to be really easy for the drivers to use”.​

For Ruchika Jajodia, User Experience Manager at Aston Martin with 15 years in the automotive industry, safety isn’t just a feature—it’s the foundational constraint shaping every design decision. From gaming to healthcare to airport design and eventually automotive, her journey led her to spend the last decade working on both concept and production cars for startups and established luxury brands.​

At Aston Martin, Ruchika built a 17-member UX team from scratch, starting as the only designer. Her work spans the spectrum from fully autonomous vehicles with no steering wheel (developed back in 2016) to today’s connected luxury cars that never truly sleep, constantly listening for data and ready to deliver personalized experiences whether you’re on your couch or behind the wheel.​

In this conversation, she demystifies the complexity of automotive UX research—why cars take 2-4 years to develop, how trust is the fundamental challenge for autonomous vehicles, what research methods work in driving simulators versus customer clinics, the cultural differences between EU and US safety expectations, and why aspiring automotive UX researchers need patience above all else.​​

Her core message? In automotive, there’s no space for assumptions. You work on cutting-edge technology 3-4 years before the world sees it, and when that car finally launches, the joy makes every sleepless night worth it.​​

Ruchika’s Journey: From Healthcare to Automotive

Ruchika introduces herself with characteristic breadth:​​

“I have been in the industry for almost 15 years since I graduated. And not only automotive—I’ve worked in like different areas, like gaming or healthcare, and did a bit of airport design as well long time ago. And it’s just been a fun journey”.​

The Automotive Decade

“Cars have been my world for last 10-12 years, largely. And I’ve worked in concept cars and production cars, and from startup seeing to established companies where they’ve been making cars for many, many years. It’s been a fun ride”.​​

Ruchika’s profile shows she started her career in India before moving to the UK, where she’s worked with international automotive brands. Her experience spans Jaguar Land Rover, Dyson, Tata Elxsi, and currently Aston Martin.​

The Safety Imperative: Drivers vs. Passengers

When asked to unpack the world of automotive UX research, Ruchika immediately centers on safety.​​

The Primary Task

“For drivers, it’s their primary job is to drive, and everything else is secondary—assisting them in the drive, whether it’s through passing information or entertaining through music or something like that”.​

“For passengers it’s slightly different, because then it’s more entertainment and comfort. But for drivers, it’s—their primary job is to drive and everything else is secondary”.​​

The Long Timeline Challenge

“And research plays a huge amount of role because it’s the way we forecast what’s happening in the future. Because automotive takes a long time. So we keep looking at UX trends, what’s coming up, and then try and incorporate that early on within the life cycle of the car design and development phases”.​

Synchronizing Digital Ecosystems

“And then we try and also make sure that it’s keeping in tandem with all the digital ecosystem that every human lives in these days, and see where it synchronizes and how do we tie up these gaps to make the experience more holistic and seamless”.​​

The Evolution of Connected Cars

When asked about connected cars and new technologies, Ruchika paints a fascinating picture of how far connectivity has come.​

From Emergency Calls to Social Ecosystems

“Connected cars have been there for last many years now, and the level of connectivity is improving and progressing day by day”.​

“We live in our day-to-day life in the world of phones, digital devices, which have come from those dial-up things long, long time ago to now totally wireless, using voice to make calls. And similarly, cars have moved on in similar way”.​

“We used to look at connectivity as just first connection for emergency calls or breakdown covers and things like that. But now it’s become more and more like where I’m connected with another car and I can do a convoy travel versus I’m connected to my phone app and I can send stuff to my car while I’m on my couch”.​​

Beyond the Car

“So my car experience is not limited to within car, but also away on my couch where I’m sending my navigation or sending details to my friends and ‘this is where we’re going to meet’ and sending them the address and things like that. Or I’m locking my car if I’ve forgotten and things like that”.​

“Those are basic functional side of stuff, but also creating communities where you meet friends and things, or similar-minded people, car enthusiasts, and having that”.​​

Personalized Luxury Experiences

Ruchika shares a compelling example:​

“Recently I was looking at another car manufacturer where they were looking at sending in content in the car personalized to you to a very, very high degree. Looking at, if you like, for example, a luxury brand like Chanel, let’s say, and there is an event happening, so you are invited because you are owner of a particular car”.​

“You are invited to the Chanel event because you’ve been there once before and it kind of tracks the kind of brands you like. And then it sends you a personalized event in your car, so you can then connect and then attend that event”.​​

The Three States of Connectivity

“So it’s becoming from very wide functional space when you’re not driving to a more social ecosystem when you’re paused, and when you’re driving it’s allowing you to take all that distraction away and focusing on the drive side of it”.​

“So it’s multifaceted in terms of away from the car on your couch, to in-car when you’re paused, and when you’re driving”.​​

Cars That Never Sleep

The conversation turns to a fascinating reality of modern vehicles.​

Sleep Cycles in Combustion vs. Electric

“EVs especially don’t sleep much. Even in combustion engine cars which we use day-to-day, they also have different sleep cycles and power cycles. And if you leave your car without starting it for about two weeks or so, it goes to a deep sleep—otherwise which is why it takes a bit longer to wake up everything and preserve the batteries so when you start it, it can go”.​

“But EVs don’t sleep much at all. They’re connected, they’re looking for stuff all the time, they’re listening to data, and they’re awake, ready to go anytime”.​​

Different From the Past

Recalling older cars: “I still remember my car which was like 800 CC car in India, and I think I forgot about the car once it was parked. The way you describe things looks like the car is always awake and wide awake pretty much”.​

“Exactly. So it’s not sleeping as much anymore”.​

Two Worlds: Autonomous vs. Driver-Centric

When asked about the divergence between fully autonomous vehicles like Tesla’s Cybercab and luxury driver-focused cars, Ruchika shares deep insights from her autonomous vehicle work.​​

Working on Level 5 Autonomy (2016)

“A few years ago I was working on one of them—on a fully autonomous car which had no steering wheel, nothing. It was level 5 autonomy. And I was working for about a year into research, early research, back in 2016”.​​

Reframing the Question: From Driver to Passenger

“And we were looking at how you create trust in a driver to get into it. But actually, we then reframed the question: how do we create trust in the passenger? Because the car is fully autonomous and it’s going to self-drive”.​​

The Trust Challenge

“And even though it was fully autonomous, there are so many safety factors or human factors that we call in automotive research space that we had to look at—just around trust, or just around the kind of information the passenger would need at that time”.​​

“It was very, very interesting, because you’re getting into the car and you are like, ‘It’s going to do everything for me, right? How do I know?’ And to answer those questions are difficult to answer because every human is different, right?”.​​

Cultural Variation in Trust

“The way a Chinese user thinks or a Japanese person thinks or American thinks is one—different, right? So when we look at a global set of people who will be using autonomous vehicles, even there so much UX research is happening”.​​

Beyond Digital Interaction

“When we say, ‘Oh, there’s a robotaxi from Tesla,’ huge amount of work is happening there as well in UX space. Because user experience is not just about digital interaction but also about physical interaction, trust, what you perceive, how do you get in, how do you see this as an extension of your travel”.​​

“And not just something you just get in anymore. It’s not a transportation device”.​​

Human Factors and the Primer for Aspiring Researchers

When asked about major blocks to look at for new automotive UX researchers, Ruchika offers crucial advice.​

Don’t Assume Anything

“You don’t have to be a petrol head to start off with. I wasn’t one. I like cars and I like user experience, but I’m not obsessed with cars. I’m obsessed with user experience”.​​

“And how do you create user experience without having a baseline assumption that ‘this is how user will behave,’ especially when you work with new technologies or new areas of research where no one has the answer?”.​​

The See-Through Pillar Example

Ruchika shares a concrete example:​

“One of the projects was long time ago—was a see-through pillars. You know the pillars that we have in our car? See-through, so it can’t be see-through because it’s a structural part of the car. But then how do you—it was a wraparound screen to make it see-through”.​

“But then you have parallax suddenly, and you realize that it happens when you create that prototype. And then how do you get away with solving the problem of parallax while driving in a safe way?”.​​

“And there’s so many different things that we had to try and figure it out and see how that could work. But all these things are interesting when you are working on one particular—solving one particular problem. And there’s no space for assumption”.​

The Open Mind Imperative

“So as a researcher, I would just say go with a really open mind. You don’t know what you’re going to see. What we see out in production cars is the now. But we work in car—take three to two to four years before they see the day of light”.​​

“What you see four years later is what you’re working on now. So the technology will move on, and you might be working on really great cutting-edge technology of the current time to make it reality of future years later”.​

No Space for Assumptions

“So you really have to be open-minded and ask all sorts of questions—whether it’s silly questions or doesn’t make sense—but ask. Because there is no space for assumption”.​​

“And try a lot of A/B testing to try and figure out the answer, and with different kinds of users as well—with different backgrounds, ethnicities, genders—to find a common baseline that works for most”.​​

UX Research Methods: Stages and Approaches

When asked if research always requires people sitting in cars, Ruchika breaks down the various stages.​​

Stage 1: Benchmarking and Trend Analysis

“There are various stages to UX research that we do. So there’s in early stages we do a lot of benchmarking. We look at what are the production cars out there or concept cars which have been released by different companies around the world, or devices, or what’s happening in aerospace—it doesn’t matter. But looking at what’s new as a trend”.​

“And that doesn’t need you to be in a car. That’s more like studying what’s out there”.​​

Stage 2: Technology Partners and Suppliers

“Then we work with companies who are doing production parts and things for us. So we look at technologies with different companies, and they usually are partners or suppliers, to see how we can—what is going to work in what time frame for which car and we can make that happen”.​

“And we work with the limitations or framework of that. And if it’s a new technology, then how we take—make the best experience out of that”.​​

Stage 3: Driving Simulator Testing

“And then there’s the other aspect of UX research which we look at, which is where we have driving simulator and a user or various users sit, and we have various options and prototypes. And then we test all those prototypes in a driving environment—a simulated environment—to see what works really well”.​​

Making Judgment Calls

“And a lot of times the answer is not A or B, but part of A, part of B. And then we kind of make a judgment call of what are the things working, and we amalgamate that and then come up with a really, really good solution which should work”.​

Differentiation Factors

“Of course, we also look at differentiator factors, because all cars cannot be the same around the world, and they all have to have their own delight factor, ‘wow’ factor, differentiators. And how do you create that in similar technologies that companies use? So we try and find those experiences as well, try and find that”.​​

Stage 4: Customer Clinics

“And then there’s the other aspect where we try and run customer clinics or tests around the world with our customers or similar to our customers—would-be customers maybe. And we try and show them what the UX looks like, what is their feedback, how do they perceive it, what works, what doesn’t work, and try and make improvements from there”.​​

Stage 5: Post-Launch Iteration

“And then of course when the car launches, we get a lot of feedback then as well. So then we go through a loop of making changes which are more iterative over a long period of time—first few years of the platform or something like that”.​

Different Needs at Each Stage

“Well, all these research phases are different. They all have their own needs and wants, and different things are important at that stage. So the tool or platform such as supporting to find the answer instead of anything else”.​​

Timeline Reality: 2-4 Years Minimum

When asked about typical timelines from research to launch, Ruchika reveals the scale.​

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

“Minimum two years is what I would say, bare minimum. That is when you’re doing MVP in a very, very agile environment. That’s like on top of something that exists pretty much, or you’re creating but in a very small agile team and everyone’s pitching in and you’re buying a lot of stuff and fixing and making changes or creating your own experiences, but a part of it—not changing topsy-turvy from scratch everything. You’re not leaving that”.​​

Built-From-Scratch Software

“But if you are looking at what a lot of large companies do—is creating software from scratch for in-car experiences—then it takes three to four years”.​

Agile vs. Fast

“Some people usually mistake agile for fast. And I think here, for years, I think they’re going to have to catch some nerves for sure”.​​

The EU vs. US Regulation Story

Ruchika shares a revealing example of cultural and regulatory differences.​

The Initial Design

“Recently I recall we designed something for driver assistance features which was very much around EU regulations to suit that and safety laws and things like that. And it works well for European environment”.​

The American Backlash

“But in US it was absolutely not liked, because over there you don’t have these regulations. And they were like, ‘Why is it default so safe or so slow? I don’t want this, I don’t want this alert, I don’t want that alert. Turn it off, turn it off. And I don’t want to go and turn it off every single time,’ because that’s how it was set up to meet the EU regs”.​

The Software Change

“So then we had to do a software change only for America market, because they don’t—all the defaults were then reversed in a way. Of course, I’m not—I’m just taking that as an example—not reversed, but we had to redesign stuff and all of that. But it was changed to serve the American customers, because they don’t have this and they don’t need to”.​

The Design Ideal vs. Reality

“Something which was—we always try to design one thing for the whole global space to try and minimize cost, maintenance of the software versions, updates, all of that. It’s quite challenging to have different versions of the time. But in this case we had to, and it was an interesting experience—very stressful at that time”.​

Beyond Safety Regulations

“Every market is very different, and it brings its own challenge—not to talk about the cultural issues, but the anxiety levels, minimum anxiety level of each market. Those kind of things I’m sure are factors beyond just the safety”.​

Tools and Platforms for Automotive Research

When asked about automation and research tools, Ruchika explains the current landscape.​

Customer Clinics Are Essential

“Interviews are helpful, and that’s why we do customer clinics where we meet our customers and talk to them and try and understand. But you can’t ask all the questions at one go in a clinic”.​​

Global Research Platforms

“When we are creating something, we need to ask specific questions at that time. And which is why we do use a global platform for research as well. But that’s when we go over there and ask our customers or similar customer types—basically our archetypes—these questions”.​

Example questions: “What do you think about this particular flow of interaction versus the other flow of interaction? What makes sense to you?”.​​

Cultural Response Variation

“And the way the Japanese person would react or respond would be so different from sometimes how an American person would say”.​​

Finding Common Patterns

“Or a lot of times we find, ‘Yes, okay, we have found a common pattern. Everyone seems to like it. It works really well. The B option works for most people and it’s not confusing—it’s actually really clear.’ And then we go ahead with that”.​

Reading Between the Lines with AI

“Sometimes we do a lot of reading between the lines, and we use AI which is built in these platforms to understand—pick out nuggets of information. Why is this decision made? What’s the thinking? Why is this person choosing that?”.​​

“And just to be able to go and look at that bit of information—that nugget of information—is very helpful. Of course, it’s not possible to go through… if I’m doing 16 people or 60 people, to go through 60 hours of data. In that case, that’s when you need a tool to be able to pull these things out for me. And then I can just watch maybe an hour of total content which is meaningful and important for that”.​

The Future: Virtual Simulator Access

When asked about tool customizations for automotive research, Ruchika proposes an innovative idea.​

The Current Limitation

“In the simulator space right now, the simulator driving environment which a lot of companies—all automotive companies pretty much—use in their day-to-day life to develop UX experiences in there and to try different things, it would be very interesting if virtually someone could sit in that and then try it”.​​

“So instead of getting a person physically in the driving simulator, which we have to do anyways, but then I don’t have my Japanese customer there suddenly”.​​

The Virtual Solution

“And it will be interesting if there was a possibility that I could get someone from Japan to experience that in a virtual setup. And that could mean where—in a VR or AR, XR—like there’s so many gradations happening”.​

“And through different tools that we use in automotive like Unity, Kanzi, or whatever—so much can be built. And then you put it in that space, and then all you need to do is own a pair of VR glasses and then experience it there and then try and learn from that data instead of trying to do that from a physical simulator environment”.​​

Both Have Value

“And I’m not saying A answer is better than B—like both have their own value. But just to be able to get that sort of information or learnings from different cultural backgrounds or different places where we sell our cars, that would be very interesting and to be able to learn that”.​​

Career Advice: Be Strong for the Long Run

Ruchika closes with powerful advice for those entering or considering automotive UX.​

No Instant Gratification

“Be strong enough for the long run. There’s no instant gratification in automotive. It’s like a long, very, very long-term output”.​​

“Sort of like you’re creating a big product—10,000 parts, 10,000 products come in together to make one big product. It’s not going to be quick”.​

Challenges Along the Way

“There’s going to be lots of challenges en route, and you have to get over those challenges and not get held back and feel disheartened very early on. Like, ‘Oh, I designed that and it didn’t happen.’ No, there’s lot more things which do happen, but you have to learn to adapt and be agile”.​​

Be Like Water

“Be very much like water in a way. And when you see the car come out two years later, three years later, four years later—whenever it comes out—the joy that you feel that ‘Oh my God, all those years and sleepless nights that I have given to this has come alive,’ and it just makes everything worth it”.​

The Heartbreaks

“And I have experienced it a few times. And I’ve had heartbreaks when the company has closed down and three and a half years later I’m like, ‘What? That car is not going to come out? It’s never going to see the day of night?’ I’ve had heartbreaks as well”.​​

Like a Relationship

“So it’s like a relationship you have with the cars, sadly to say it like that. But it is—you live that world for a long time. And it’s very joyful. So it’s a long ride, so don’t give in very easily, you know, for very small things”.​

Patience Is Essential

“Good things take time. And one of the virtues that I see in researchers is about patience, because you can get equally frustrated when you get a participant which is who is not really opening up and this kind of thing”.​

“So I think researchers need their own dose of training on patience. And patience is expensive nowadays, so it’s something that’s a soft quality I think all researchers must have, and much more so in the world of automotive”.​​

Key Takeaways: The Automotive UX Research Landscape

Ruchika’s 15 years in automotive UX, including building a 17-member team from scratch at Aston Martin, offers several crucial lessons:​

1. Safety is the foundational constraint​

Everything designed must be road-safe; for drivers, the primary task is driving—everything else assists or entertains secondarily.​​

2. Connected cars have evolved radically​

From basic emergency calls to convoy travel, couch-to-car navigation, social communities, and personalized luxury brand event invitations delivered in-car.​​

3. EVs never truly sleep​

Unlike combustion engines that enter deep sleep after two weeks, electric vehicles constantly listen for data and remain ready to go.​

4. Autonomous vehicles are fundamentally about trust​

The question isn’t “how does the driver trust it?” but “how does the passenger trust it?”—and answers vary dramatically by culture.​​

5. There’s no space for assumptions​

From parallax issues in see-through pillars to any new technology, assumptions fail; open-minded questioning with diverse users reveals common baselines.​​

6. Research happens in five distinct stages​

Benchmarking trends, working with technology partners, driving simulator testing, customer clinics, and post-launch iteration—each with different needs.​​

7. Timelines are measured in years​

MVP takes minimum two years; built-from-scratch software takes 3-4 years; you work on cutting-edge tech today that becomes reality four years later.​​

8. Cultural and regulatory differences demand customization​

EU safety regulations create defaults that American customers find overly cautious; designing one global version is ideal but often impossible.​

9. AI tools enable qualitative analysis at scale​

When testing 60 people generates 60 hours of data, AI extracts meaningful nuggets so researchers can watch one hour of critical content.​​

10. Virtual simulators could democratize global testing​

Getting Japanese customers physically into driving simulators is challenging; VR/AR could enable remote testing from different cultural backgrounds.​​

11. The answer is often “part A, part B”​

Research rarely produces clear A vs. B winners; judgment calls amalgamate what works from multiple options into optimal solutions.​​

12. Patience is the essential virtue​

Automotive UX is a relationship with cars that spans years; heartbreaks happen when companies close and cars never launch; but when they do, it makes everything worth it.​​

Final Thoughts: Building the Future One Sleepless Night at a Time

Ruchika’s journey from healthcare and airport design to building Aston Martin’s UX team reveals an important truth about automotive research.​

This isn’t mobile app design where you ship weekly and iterate based on analytics. It’s forecasting UX trends years in advance, incorporating them into multi-year development cycles, and synchronizing with digital ecosystems that will exist when the car finally launches.​​

The safety imperative means there’s no room for assumptions. When parallax in see-through pillars creates driving hazards, you can’t guess your way to solutions—you prototype, test with diverse users, and find baselines that work globally.​​

The trust challenge in autonomous vehicles demonstrates how fundamentally human factors shape technology adoption. A Chinese user, Japanese user, and American user have different expectations, anxieties, and information needs when entering a car with no steering wheel. Answering “how do I know it’s safe?” requires understanding not just the technology but the psychology of trust across cultures.​

Connected cars reveal how automotive UX now extends beyond the vehicle itself. The experience includes sending navigation from your couch, receiving personalized Chanel event invitations because the car knows your brand preferences, creating car enthusiast communities, and managing three distinct states: away from car, in car paused, and in car driving.​​

The research methods reflect this complexity. Benchmarking aerospace and concept cars. Working with technology suppliers on what’s possible in specific timeframes. Testing prototypes in driving simulators. Running customer clinics globally. Iterating post-launch. Each stage demands different tools, and AI increasingly helps extract meaningful patterns from dozens of hours of qualitative data.​

Cultural differences surprise even experienced researchers. Designing driver assistance defaults to meet EU safety regulations created American customer backlash—”Why is it so safe? Turn it off!”—requiring market-specific software versions that complicate maintenance but serve different regulatory and cultural expectations.​

For aspiring automotive UX researchers, Ruchika’s advice is clear: don’t assume you need to be a petrol head, but do cultivate patience. You’ll work on cutting-edge technology for 2-4 years before anyone sees it. You’ll experience heartbreaks when companies close and cars never launch. But when that car you lived with for years finally hits the road, containing 10,000 parts you helped orchestrate into one holistic experience, the joy makes every sleepless night worth it.​​

The future Ruchika envisions includes virtual simulator access that enables Japanese customers to test from home via VR, democratizing global cultural testing. It includes cars that never sleep, constantly listening and ready to deliver personalized experiences. And it includes autonomous vehicles where trust isn’t an afterthought but the fundamental design challenge.​

As automotive becomes less about transportation devices and more about extensions of digital life, UX research grows more critical. Because when safety is non-negotiable and timelines span years, there’s no room for assumptions—only evidence, patience, and the willingness to be like water, adapting through every challenge until the car finally comes alive.​

Thank you for reading!

If Ruchika’s insights on automotive UX research, connected cars, and autonomous vehicle trust resonated with you, share this article with researchers curious about the unique challenges of designing in-car experiences.

Have questions about automotive UX research or building research teams? Connect with us at hi@uxarmy.com

Special thanks to Ruchika Jajodia for sharing lessons learned building Aston Martin’s UX team and working on everything from fully autonomous vehicles to luxury connected car experiences.

And thank you to all of you for being part of the User Insights community.

⚡ This podcast is brought to you by UXArmy, an all-in-one UX research tool.