Zeno: Reimagining the Family Drive-Thru for the Autonomous Era

A speculative design project in collaboration with Cambridge Consultants, exploring how a smart in-car assistant could transform a chaotic fast-food run into a seamless and meaningful family journey.

#Smart Vehicle UX

#Human-Machine Interaction

#Conceptual Design

Overview

Role(Team of 5 Designers):

  • Lead Secondary Researcher

  • Concept Ideation & Strategist

  • Presentation & 3D Designer

Tools:

Figma, Blender, FigJam

Details:

Client: Cambridge Consultants (Industry Project)

Timeline: 5 Weeks (Apr-June, 2025)

As autonomous vehicles are set to become mainstream, the in-car experience is poised for a revolution. However, for families, the traditional drive-thru remains a source of stress, chaos, and missed opportunities for connection, especially when juggling the needs of multiple passengers.

In collaboration with Cambridge Consultants, we identified a unique opportunity: to leverage the upcoming shift to autonomous driving to design a holistic, proactive in-car assistant that transforms a stressful task into a meaningful family experience users can look forward to.

The Brief

In a world of autonomous vehicles, consider how the "drive-thru" experience could change to better reflect the specific needs of the vehicle's passengers, whilst considering the opportunities new technologies may present.

Design Challenge

How might we reimagine the drive-thru experience for a world where vehicles are autonomous?

Constraints:

  • A 10-year horizon window

  • Family user

  • Lv.4 and above AV level

Project Outline

Discovery & Research

Secondary Research

For urban families with children, Drive-thru is not just fast, it's a hassle-free and efficient solution, whether it's for picking up and dropping off children, taking a break after school or adding a meal on the spot, it plays an important role in being ‘fast, hassle-free and low-conflict’.

I found these insights by analyzing market reports, user reviews, and experience videos:

Why drive-thru?

For family users, convenience is only superficial; "avoiding trouble" (such as the chaos of taking children in and out of restaurants) and a sense of privacy to the brand are the deep emotional factors that drive them to choose drive-through.

Convenience

Quick and easy on wallet

Avoiding social stress

Free of troubles caused by children

Privacy

Private family dinning experience

Autonomous car technologies in the next 10 years?

V2X

Vehicle to everything —- It allows vehicles to communicate with everything from the cloud to other vehicles.

In-car AI

AI-Powered decision making to help make most suitable decisions for the user based on the available data.

AV L4+

High level AV allows user fully let go of vehicle when the autonomous driving features are engaged.

Primary Research

Observation

Interviews

Based on my initial findings, our team conducted user interviews and field observations to validate our hypotheses. Through in-depth discussions with several parents, we found that:

They want an experience that not only fits seamlessly into their family routine but also transforms stressful travel moments into valuable quality time.

They want the core experience to be fast and effortless, removing the stress of queuing and the friction of ordering.

They want tools to manage their children's preferences easily, keeping everyone happy without adding more conflict to the journey.

→ These findings led to a clear persona and informed our experience goals.

The Juggling Parent (Persona)

The Thompsons Family

Painpoints

  • Forgetting orders, juggling apps and kids

  • Unclear wait times or messy communication

  • Feeling rushed by others behind

  • Trouble managing meals and waste in-car

  • #Energetic

    #Organized

    #Time-Pressed

    #Family-Oriented

Experience Goals

Save more time

Eat easier in car

Keep kids engaged

Stay in control of everything

SOLUTION

Meet Zeno!

In car smart assistant, designed to simplify and personalise your lifestyle experience in an AV

Multiple touchpoints to enable group ordering andcustomization access, for users in and outside the car

Experience Journey Map

AV Center Dashboard

Browsing Restaurants & Details

Group Ordering

Order Tracking

PIckup & Dining Experience

Stakeholder Value

Client Feedback

The team showed a strong understanding of the brief, delivering high-quality, thoughtful work. Their research was thorough, combining real user insights with technologies to inform a well-rounded solution. The designs were carefully considered,addressing key user pain points, and they were quick to adapt based on our feedback. Ultimately, they proposed an innovative and user-focused experience that responded intelligently to complex needs.

-Alice McCutcheon, Senior UX Designer

THANKS FOR WATCHING.