Ever thought you could improve your Hyundai? Now's your chance, at the UX Studio Seoul.

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Ever thought you could improve your Hyundai? Now's your chance, at the UX Studio Seoul.

Published: 02 Jul. 2025, 08:30 Updated: 02 Jul. 2025, 18:57

SARAH CHEA
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

A wooden prototype buck of a van is placed on the first floor of the UX Studio Seoul, installed with swivel seats so that passengers in the front and second rows can face each other, in Hyundai Motor's Gangnam office in southern Seoul. [SARAH CHEA]

At Hyundai Motor, the general public isn't just potential buyers — they become researchers.

That’s the bold idea behind UX Studio Seoul, Hyundai’s first-ever participatory open research lab, opened at its Gangnam office in southern Seoul.

Here, everyone — even those who don’t own a Hyundai — is welcome to check out the automaker's latest under-development technologies and play an active part in shaping them, especially for modern cars that have to offer lots of convenient features in semi-automous cars, which may become fully autonomous in a few years, and share their thoughts on improvement.

On the first floor sits a wooden prototype buck — physical representations of a vehicle used for various purposes, from panel-shaping to aerodynamics — of a van, installed with swivel seats so that passengers in the front and second rows can face each other.

“We initially set the length of the gap between the facing passengers at 300 millimeters [11.8 inches], but adjusted it to 375 millimeters upon customer feedback,” said a Hyundai Motor spokesperson during a press tour on Tuesday.

An Arc room, or simulation room, on the second floor is set up with a vehicle, allowing people to virtually test the car using a massive monitor at the UX Studio Seoul in Hyundai Motor's Gangnam office in southern Seoul. [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

Nearby, an Ioniq 6 is parked, topped with its Gleo AI audio assistant, capable of responding to highly specific voice commands such as “Open the window halfway” or “Open the trunk and charging port simultaneously.”

Visitors can share their thoughts in a variety of ways — by scanning a QR code, leaving handwritten notes on a bulletin board or speaking directly with staff. With customer consent, Hyundai records these conversations to capture valuable insights that may inform future developments.

Around 70 UX-dedicated researchers work on the fourth floor, the largest team at the company's headquarters in Yangjae-dong, southern Seoul, as well as at its Pangyo and Namyang facilities, both in Gyeonggi, who analyze the input and translate it into actionable innovation.

Hyundai Motor's UX Studio Seoul, its first participatory open research lab, in its Gangnam office in southern Seoul [SARAH CHEA]

While the first floor is open to the public, the second floor is for an advanced research lab where Hyundai researchers develop meaningful ideas to test out new concepts and push early-stage ideas through tangible, real-world development.

An Arc room, or simulation room, is set up with a vehicle, allowing people to virtually test-drive the car using massive monitors. The car is outfitted with advanced monitoring systems that track driving behaviors, such as eye blinks and attention levels, with the goal of collecting data to enhance the development of autonomous driving technologies.

Hyundai Motor's UX Studio Seoul, its first participatory open research lab, in its Gangnam office in southern Seoul [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

There are also several themed rooms, such as a high-performance room and an autonomous driving room, where visitors can fully focus on specific features. In three of the rooms, huge chalkboards are densely filled with information about the latest technologies, and visitors can also hear explanations about even more advanced innovations.

"Gangnam was the best location to open our first UX lab thanks to its abundance of trend-savvy customers,” said Nam Shin, the leader of Hyundai’s UX team.

"We aim to update the entire lab at least every six months, based on new technologies developed by the public’s direct experiences and feedback."

Hyundai has similar types of customer-based research labs in Frankfurt, Germany, California and Shanghai, but they are only run privately with recruited customers.

"We are considering shifting the Shanghai lab to an open lab for the public, maybe next year,” Nam said.

BY SARAH CHEA [[email protected]]