The Mercedes-Benz Lifestyle Configurator was a fundamentally different approach to vehicle recommendation. Instead of confronting users with technical specifications and price ranges, the system asked about something far more personal: their lifestyle.
Where do you live? What music do you listen to? What does your ideal travel look like? By mapping lifestyle preferences to vehicle personalities, the configurator translated who you are into which Mercedes-Benz fits you by making the path from curiosity to configuration intuitive and personal.
The core design challenge
Building a multi-step preference system that felt like a conversation, not a questionnaire. It is visually rich, emotionally resonant, and frictionless to navigate on both desktop and tablet.
The Process
The project was developed at Nolte & Lauth GmbH, Berlin, for Mercedes-Benz / Daimler AG. I worked as a UX Concepter under Creative Director Jens Schlüter.
Concept & Problem Framing
Traditional car configurators create decision paralysis with hundreds of options, technical jargon, and price anxiety push users away before they reach a decision. The lifestyle approach inverted this: starting with identity rather than inventory.
Interaction Architecture
My core responsibility was designing the interaction framework and navigation architecture carrying users through preference categories including living environments, travel styles, music, and leisure activities without losing momentum.
Wireframing & User Flow
I developed the complete wireframe set beginning from the landing experience through all preference screens to the final vehicle recommendation and configurator handoff to establish a full interaction logic.
My Role & Responsibilities
I worked as a UX Concepter and was co-responsible for concept, interaction architecture, and wireframing, under the creative direction of Jens Schlüter.
Concept & Interaction Architecture:
- Co-Developed the core concept of lifestyle-based vehicle recommendation
- Co-Designed the complete interaction architecture including a category sequence, navigation logic, selection states, and preference-to-result transition
Wireframing:
- Co-Created the complete wireframe set across all screens and states
- Established interaction patterns for multi-select preference screens and the final vehicle carousel
Why this still matters in 2026
Today this approach for AI driven configurators is everywhere. The insight that users reveal preferences most naturally when asked about their lives is now foundational to personalization design. The interaction architecture I developed here remains directly applicable to any recommendation system today, including AI-driven product discovery.
