Polestar Spaces
Conducting UX research studies and initiatives for Polestars digital and physical customer touchpoints
January 2025 - ongoing
Polestar
Lead UX Researcher
Role
As a Lead UX Researcher at Polestar, I oversee 20+ product teams providing guidance and support to UX designers in conducting smaller-scale UX studies. My role involves collaborating closely with designers to ensure that user insights are integrated into the product development process. I also lead large strategic research initiatives, helping shape the overall user experience direction across the totality of different customer touchpoints. I work to align research activities with business goals and user needs, driving innovation and ensuring that products are user-centered, data driven and effective.
Research initiative Polestar Spaces
Polestar Spaces is an ongoing research initiative that examines customer interaction touchpoints within Polestar’s retail stores, known as "Spaces." The focus of the research is to understand how customers engage with salespeople and digital tools to configure electric vehicles (EVs) in-store. Previously it was not possible for customers to configure their car in the Spaces but the configuration and purchasing journey was purely digital. From March 2025 this will change and customers will be able to order their EVs with the support of a salesperson.
In the Spaces, customers will interact with digital experiences that allows them to configure their Polestar car, offering a seamless blend of physical and digital experiences. A key feature of the store is the physical table with an integrated screen where customers can configure their car in real time, providing an interactive experience that combines tactile and digital elements.
In addition to the screen, the table features probes showcasing various interior materials and customization options. These probes provide customers with a tactile sense of the materials and features available based on the specific configuration they choose, enhancing the personalized nature of their car-buying experience.
As a part of this research initiative, we aim to optimize these touchpoints to ensure that customers have a smooth, engaging and personalized experience when configuring their Polestar vehicle in-store.
Objectives
As Polestar explores new ways of engaging customers within its retail Spaces, the research project focuses on understanding how digital solutions are used during in-person interactions between salespeople and customers. With the ability for customers to configure and order their electric vehicles directly in store, it is critical to evaluate how digital and physical touchpoints come together to create a seamless experience.
Objectives
Understand human-to-human digital interactions: Investigate how the digital configurator is used during face-to-face interactions between the customer and the salesperson.
Optimize physical and digital integration: Explore how the tactile experience of touching and feeling materials complements the digital car configuration process.
Design new interaction models: Identify and evaluate emerging interaction models between salespeople and customers, focusing on how digital tools are shared and experienced in physical spaces.
Key areas of focus
Usage of the digital configurator
How do customers and salespeople interact with the digital configurator during the order process?
What are the most effective ways to present the configurator in a shared physical environment?
Interaction models
Should the salesperson and customer have separate screens or share a single display?
What impact does physical positioning (e.g., sitting across from vs. beside each other) have on engagement and collaboration?
Research plan
Contextual inquiry & observation
Observe real-world interactions between salespeople and customers within the Spaces.
Identify patterns in how the digital configurator is used and how physical materials are explored.
Prototyping & usability testing
Create and test prototypes of different interaction models (e.g., shared vs. individual screens).
Conduct usability tests to evaluate customer comprehension, engagement, and ease of use.
Stakeholder collaboration
Work closely with designers, product teams, and sales staff to align research findings with business goals.
Share insights to inform the design of future customer engagement strategies.
Challenges
One of the key challenges is adapting tools that were not originally designed for customer-facing use. Many internal systems now need to be reimagined to support intuitive and rather collaborative interactions between salespeople and customers while they are configuring an EV in a Space. This requires addressing both technical adjustments and experiential considerations to ensure a smooth, user-friendly process.
Stakeholder management also presents a considerable challenge. With Polestar’s expansive and diverse organizational structure, various elements of the customer journey are owned by separate product teams. This fragmentation makes it essential to align stakeholders across teams to ensure a unified and seamless brand experience. Collaboration across these teams is crucial for delivering consistent and well-integrated solutions.
Balancing digital and physical experiences is an ongoing complexity. Customers are not only interacting with a digital configurator but also engaging with physical probes to touch and feel materials. Bridging these two worlds requires designing an experience that is both efficient and sensorially engaging, ensuring that neither the digital nor physical aspect is compromised.
Outcome
This project is currently ongoing and outcome and learning will be added as soon as the project is complete.