How One Designer is Elevating Kenworth’s Driver Experience
Innovation has always been key to the formula for making a Kenworth a Kenworth. It’s driven by designers who painstakingly perfect the little things to make a big impact.
But just who are they? Meet Madison Stemmler, one of Kenworth’s behind-the-scenes creators of the World’s Best trucks.
Madison is a user interface designer who creates displays that make driving a Kenworth an intuitive experience. She doesn’t just make screens look nice; she is crafting the relationship between human and machine, to keep drivers safe, informed, and comfortable on the road.
Madison’s work is about making the complex intuitive. “I not only design the way the displays work, I design the way they interact with you,” she said. “At the end of the day, I’m designing the relationship between you and the machine. If I’m doing my job well, you probably won’t notice it. Good design is often invisible.”
Madison’s journey into the world of transportation was not a straight highway. After graduating from the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism, she worked for a Kansas City public relations and marketing agency before pivoting to the firm’s design team. With a natural inclination toward technology, which began while taking computer programming classes as college electives, Madison found herself increasingly interested in product creation rather than its marketing.
Fueled by the desire to immerse herself in user experience (UX) and human-centered product design, Madison relocated to Seattle to pursue a master’s degree in human-computer interaction and design at the University of Washington. After graduation, she was hired by Kenworth to champion the driver experience inside the vehicle. “I get to think through every aspect of the user experience. And it’s really an art of balancing the constraints of understanding driver needs and advocating for them,” Madison said.
To truly understand the mind of the driver, Madison obtained her Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) – something a little unusual for someone on the job for just a few months. But Madison advocated for the experience and was supported because it was recognized as valuable for her role. “I need to understand how the vehicle works and how to use them to design properly. How do you design without ever having been a driver yourself?”
The process was intense, requiring over a hundred hours of training and a mechanical understanding she didn’t initially possess. Despite the initial hurdles, including finding her voice as one of the few women in the room, Madison persevered and is proud to say “I’m a woman who drives a truck now.”
“I may not be a driver by profession, but I can empathize and better understand the environment they are in day to day,” Madison said. “Being able to hit something on a touchscreen when you’re moving, while not distracting you, is my highest priority. I’m constantly thinking about that environment and designing the best experience for the driver.”
Madison is reminded that her presence in an industry comprised mostly of men is not just about her job, but also about inspiring others.
At a recent touch-a-truck charity event for local kids, hosted by the Junior League of Seattle, Madison and four female colleagues proudly drove several Kenworth trucks, including a bright pink T680, to be displayed. “Everybody was excited to see the pretty trucks come in, but when they realized women were driving, we had so many women say, ‘This is so cool.’ A group of women drivers was just unexpected.”
A highlight for Madison was watching young girls react to the trucks. “The event had games with prizes, and a little girl won a small pink dump truck. She posed in front of the pink Kenworth with her pink prize, and she was so excited.”
Madison’s connection to trucks, while seemingly accidental, has deep roots. Her grandfather was a passionate heavy-duty truck collector in Port Angeles, Washington.
“My grandfather had a barn that looked more like a small airplane hangar,” she said. “When we were little, we used to go up to the barn where he was constantly restoring semi-trucks. He was meticulous.” Her grandfather’s truck collection was eventually donated to the Pacific Northwest Truck Museum in Salem, Oregon.
During Madison’s first year at Kenworth, she had the opportunity to participate, and drive to a truck show event hosted by the Pacific Northwest Truck Museum. Madison took advantage of the opportunity to visit and was allowed to get behind the wheel of one of her grandfather’s trucks, which was on display.
Madison’s grandmother was known to give good luck charms intended to keep family members safe when driving. “When I got in the vehicle, there were two of her hang tags hanging from the steering wheel. It was a special full-circle moment.”
If Madison’s grandparents could see her now, they would surely be proud of the confident, accomplished professional she has grown into. In addition to completed projects and even some patents in the works, Madison continues to design with a human-first approach to positively impact the driver experience inside a Kenworth truck.
“The more you can put the human at the center of our product creation process, the better our products are going to be,” Madison said.
