Faraday Future

The Future of Touch: Designing  for a Screen-First Car Interior

As part of a five-person team, the task was to design and develop Faraday’s in-car digital experiences from the ground up. With technology advancing beyond mobile devices, the automotive industry has increasingly focused on creating cutting-edge digital interfaces to define the modern driving experience. Traditionally, much of the industry’s attention has been on physical and interior design, making this project a unique opportunity to prioritize the digital in-car experience.

The team worked on-site in Gardena, CA, for five months, fully immersed in collaboration with Faraday’s internal team. This hands-on approach allowed for real-world testing of screens and interfaces within the vehicles.

Project Overview

Roles & Duration

User Experience Design
User Interface Design
Iconography

10 months

Primary Tools

Sketch
Abstract
Zeplin

We had to rethink our approach—touch controls for everything in the FF91 were rare at the time.

Merging Technology, Design, and Lifestyle

Faraday Future set out to revolutionize the driving experience with their flagship model, the FF91—a vehicle packed with cutting-edge technology and designed to push the boundaries of automotive innovation. The challenge was clear: design a functional, intuitive, and intelligent human interface concept that delivers a best-in-class user experience across 12 interconnected touchscreens, auditory cues, and voice interactions.

The FF91 is no ordinary vehicle. Equipped with advanced features like facial recognition inside and out, a voice control assistant, and fully digital vehicle controls, it represents the seamless integration of automotive and digital technologies. However, this sophistication brought a unique challenge: how do you ensure that users, both drivers and passengers, feel the brand’s identity in every interaction while maintaining simplicity and elegance?

“The challenge was clear: design a functional, intuitive, and  intelligent human interface concept that delivers a best-in-class  user experience across 12 interconnected touchscreens, auditory cues, and voice interactions.”

Designing for a car is unlike designing for other digital products. An automotive brand is a lifestyle choice—a statement that blends technology, luxury, and identity. Every element, from the feel of a leather seat to the responsiveness of an on-screen button, must evoke the brand’s essence. For the FF91, this meant designing an experience that felt as advanced and premium as the car itself.

Before any design work could begin, we needed to define the personality of the Faraday Future brand and its core values. This process involved extensive market research, user interviews, and collaborative workshops to uncover what makes the FF91 unique. What sets this vehicle apart from competitors? What emotional and functional needs must it meet? These insights shaped the four guiding principles that became our North Star, anchoring every design decision that followed.

The Art and Science of Balancing Safety & Style

Designing the FF91’s infotainment system was all about creating something that could adapt to any environment, whether it was the brightness of day or the calm of night. Day and night modes weren’t just a nice-to-have—they were essential to ensuring the driver felt at ease while also keeping the experience visually stunning.

We started with a bold, cinematic color palette, inspired by Hollywood’s use of light and color to evoke emotion. On our laptops, the night mode colors looked perfect—vibrant but understated. But once we tested them on the actual screens inside the car, things changed. The blues we had chosen were way too bright for nighttime driving. Instead of feeling sleek and calming, the brightness was distracting, and we knew we had to fix it for both the driver’s comfort and safety.

The good news? We had built a design system early on that made updates a breeze. This was before design systems were even a thing, but we knew having one place to manage components would save us time. All we had to do was adjust the hex codes for the night mode colors, and the changes rippled across the entire interface. It was a small tweak with a big impact, and it’s one of the reasons I always prioritize setting up a design system on any project now.

“Working side-by-side with Faraday’s team was key to solving problems quickly and staying true to the brand.”

Throughout this process, we worked hand-in-hand with Faraday Future’s in-house team. For almost ten months, we were right there at their Los Angeles headquarters, collaborating on every detail. It wasn’t just about designing an interface—it was about building a system that felt natural, luxurious, and uniquely Faraday. That close partnership meant we could solve problems quickly, like the night mode colors, and ensure the FF91’s interface would live up to its cutting-edge promise.

In the end, the FF91’s interface became more than just a screen; it’s an extension of the car’s personality—a space where technology, safety, and luxury all come together to create a driving experience like no other.

The Art and Science of Balancing Safety & Style

Designing and prototyping an interface is one thing; coordinating 40 designers and engineers, as well as product teams located across the globe, is a completely different challenge. Managing this complexity required more than just good intentions—it demanded a robust system that could align diverse teams across multiple continents and disciplines toward a shared vision. To address this, we set out to create a comprehensive UI Toolkit, a unified framework that served as a single source of truth for design and development. This toolkit not only facilitated collaboration but also provided a clear roadmap for scaling the interface and guiding its future evolution. By anchoring our efforts in a cohesive system, we ensured consistency, adaptability, and the ability to meet the demands of an ever-changing global landscape.

The Faraday Future FF91 project was a masterclass in balancing innovation, collaboration, and scalability. Coordinating 40 designers and engineers across global teams required the creation of a robust UI Toolkit—a single source of truth that ensured consistency, adaptability, and alignment across disciplines. Real-world testing underscored the importance of validating designs in their actual environment, leading to key refinements like safer night mode colors. Embedding our team with Faraday Future’s experts fostered rapid problem-solving and left behind scalable systems and methodologies for future growth. The project highlighted the power of design systems, collaboration, and a human-centered approach to deliver a cutting-edge interface that seamlessly integrates technology, usability, and the essence of the brand.

Main Takeaways

“The project highlighted the power of design systems, collaboration, and a human-centered approach to deliver a cutting-edge interface that seamlessly integrates technology, usability, and the essence of the brand.”