6-months Internship at Toyota Motor Europe
Posted by: Laura Seminati
Last year I decided to suspend my PhD to undertake a 6-months placement at Toyota Motor Europe in Brussels from September to February.
During my internship, I worked as user-experience researcher and I led a research project focused on understanding the needs, behaviours, and expectations of Generation Z in the mobility sector. The final goal was to translate user insights into opportunities for innovation across current and future vehicle categories.
The research project started from a literature review on Gen Z characteristics and mobility habits, that informed the design of a structured interview to investigated Gen Z needs. The interviews were structured following themes identified from Gen Z characteristics, such as sustainability, flexibility, and digital connectivity and aimed to gain previous experience and future expectations of both drivers and non-drivers’ users.
I examined expectations toward compact and alternative mobility solutions. I conducted a series of internal and external interviews, synthesised findings, and translated insights into opportunity spaces. Building on these results, I organized and facilitated two ideation sessions: one with the UX team and one with internal Gen Z participants. These sessions focused on generating sketched early stage concepts aligned with the identified Gen Z user needs.
Beyond my main research project, I supported various ongoing activities. This included supporting in user tests with driving simulators, participating in interviews, and contributing to survey activities.
Overall, my internship allowed me to develop strong skills in qualitative research, user centred design, and cross functional collaboration while contributing meaningful insights to future mobility strategy. Working for Toyota also exposed me to the Japanese culture in the workplace and I really enjoyed getting to know how research work in industry.
Outside work, I also had the chance to explore Brussels, visit Ghent and Bruges and try their famous chocolate!
