VOLVO ZEUX - STORYBOARD

All amazing renderings on this page for Zeux are created by Rickard Westler - Visualization Artist at Volvo Group Design.


Overview

The Zeux concept was initiated in 2016 as a collaboration between Volvo & LEGO Technic as well as a group of children who shared their ideas and vision for an autonomous wheel loader concept.

The Opportunity

Volvo CE & Lego found an opportunity to create something out of this world (The Zeux autonomous Wheel Loader). They involved technicians and children in the process which in turn gave feedback on how they would like the concept to be designed as well as percieved (thus the added camera and the drone as seen in the concept). In addition to understand the target audience, a crucial part of the project was the promotion and advertisement of the Zeux Lego Wheel Loader.

The Users

The main focus was on children from 10+ years old. However, we saw adults (including myself) having plenty of fun with this amazing model.


My Role

Although not involved in interviewing the children (the target audience), I got to do something that I've always wanted to explore further: Storyboarding.

Storyboarding is important in the UX world too, since it can help visualize ideas in a chronological flow, inspiring stakeholers to take action, help predict and explore the context in an understandable manner. I was responsible for storyboarding the promotion video for this futuristic autonomous wheel loader before its LEGO release. The promotion video was mainly used internally at Volvo group. However, some of the promotional video clips shared on youtube (see link address to video further down on this page) is actually from the final storyboard that I created. The process was iterative so after many meetings and attempts, the final storyboard was finally selected. So in short, the storyboard was used to develop promotional 3D animations for the product.

Results

The storyboard functioned as a reference and support when the promotional videos for Zeux was created. I never thought that it could be this tough to design a storyboard, simply because I never had the opportunity to take it this far before.

ZEUX is a profound example of how a successful product is made: Craefully plan for the promotional videos and always keep the target audience close during development. The children were already there in the intial phase of the process and continuously involved throughout the design process. The concept is packed with user-backed features, which became a new LEGO® Technic building kit. In fact, ZEUX was so successful that it built the foundation for Volvo LX03 concept, which is the first real-world example of an autonomous wheel loader.
More info on the progressions around this incredible journey that led to the LX03 concept can be found here: https://www.volvoce.com/global/en/this-is-volvo-ce/what-we-believe-in/innovation/lx03/ You can find one of the Zeux promotion videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P78Qguwoo-Q