Editor's introduction: Car, everyone is certainly not unfamiliar, with the change of people's living economic level and life concept, the car has become the standard of more and more people. Car companies are also constantly changing and upgrading in the deepening demand, and the on-board HMI has become the main part of the current technology competition of car companies, and the user experience is also particularly important in the design of the car. This article revolves around the in-vehicle HMI, and it is recommended that you read it for those who are interested in it.
If you are careful friends, you can find that overnight in 2021, major car companies have added four words after their "smart cockpit" advertising slogans: "user experience", emphasizing that "user experience" seems to have become a gust of wind blowing by major car companies.
The Forward-Looking Economist APP pointed out that a good smart cockpit and user experience can greatly increase the interest in car purchase.
Source: Prospective Economist APP
From the development trend of concept cars of major car companies at the global auto show in the past two years, it can be seen that in the future, new models will take "intelligent cockpit and user experience" as one of the main selling points, and related on-board HMI experience research has also become the main battlefield of the current car company technology competition.
So do you know what the four words "user experience" mean to car companies? Can you see any new opportunities in this new outlet?
Today, let's move on to a deeper topic and talk about the history and future trends of in-vehicle HMIs. After all, the best way to explore the future of a thing is to first study its past, to discover the context of its development, and to speculate on its future development trends based on this.
First, the past life of the vehicle-mounted HMI
If you want to discuss the field of in-vehicle HMI, you must start with the carrier of HMI. To put it simply, there are two main traditional HMI carriers: one is the dashboard, which is used to provide the basic operation information of the vehicle (speed, speed, fuel consumption, fuel volume, etc.), and the other is the center console, which is used to provide the control information of the vehicle (settings, air conditioning, internal and external circulation, etc.) and multimedia information (music, navigation maps, etc.).
As the most direct human-vehicle interaction interface for drivers and occupants, the dashboard usually divides the development of on-board HMI into four stages according to its development form:
1. Phase 1 Mechanical instrument cluster
The tachometer and tachometer of the unified instrument cluster are mechanical, with only a small LCD screen in the middle.
2. Stage 2 Electric dial
In addition to the tachometer and the speedometer are mechanical, lcd screens are used in other areas, which can display more information content.
3. Phase 3 Digital Dashboard
The fully digital instrument cluster realizes the full lcdization of the center console and greatly enhances its sense of technology. Some high-end models combined with HUD technology can pass more information to the driver and occupants while ensuring safety. In the past, it was more common in high-end models, but with the development of technology and the gradual popularization of the process, HUD has gradually become one of the focuses of in-vehicle HMI interaction.
4. Stage 4 "Oversized" car screen
With the development of 5G transmission technology and mobile Internet, the super-sized car screen has entered the consumer's eyeballs to replace the traditional screen, with rich functions and a high degree of intelligence.
Currently, in-vehicle HMIs are in the transition period from phase III to phase IV. The development from these four stages is enough to show that the human-computer interaction mode of the on-board HMI is undergoing great subversive changes, and its main development characteristics are as follows:
(1) The interface design is gradually diversified
With the development of related basic electrical technologies such as automotive CPUs, automotive OS, and display screens, the interface design of automotive HMIs has emerged with unlimited possibilities, gradually getting rid of the shackles of simple designs that pursue performance in the industrial era to a flexible design that pursues aesthetics in the digital age.
Its development has not only taken into account the aesthetic needs of users, but also the performance needs of vehicles. As the interactive window of the traditional vehicle-mounted HMI, the information it carries is not limited to the basic information of the vehicle such as speed and speed, but more such as maps, music, and multimedia are slowly being integrated.
(2) Interactive operation is gradually diversified
The initial car did not interact, and the occupants could only obtain information about the vehicle (speed, start part change) from the dashboard in one direction.
However, with the development of in-vehicle systems, more and more control functions have been opened up, and drivers and occupants can control them through the vehicle buttons.
(3) Voice interaction is gradually intelligent
In recent years, with the addition of AI and speech recognition functions, drivers and occupants can interact with people and vehicles more simply and efficiently, and these advances have truly changed the vehicle from "usable" to "easy to use".
In particular, the improvement and improvement of voice technology not only minimizes the learning cost of drivers and passengers, but also ensures the safety and concentration of the driving process, supplemented by popular driving assistance technology, which will greatly improve the safety performance during the driving process.
It is precisely because the basic technology of these carriers has changed that it has supported the optimization and development of a richer HMI experience. However, the goals of car companies are not satisfied with the above aspects.
Second, the vehicle HMI is this life
In the future, the experience focus of the on-board HMI will focus on the development of the "smart cockpit", and the third scene to create an immersive experience for the driver and occupant is the tireless pursuit of car companies.
Through the following picture, we can better see the composition structure of the mainstream "smart cockpit" system, and can also help us better disassemble the power point of the new era of vehicle HMI experience optimization.
Source: 2021 Automotive Intelligent Cockpit and User Experience Conference
As far as the current development of vehicle technology is concerned, some new forces car companies have combined powerful on-board chips with intelligent on-board systems, and created an excellent intelligent cockpit experience based on transmission-related technologies such as the Internet of Things, but there are still many shortcomings.
The new in-vehicle HMI makes the car more flexible, easier to use, and even has better voice recognition, AI control systems, autonomous driving and other systems, these technologies free the driver's hands, making driving a pleasure.
The development of anything has pros and cons, the good side is that the information carrying interaction ability of the vehicle HMI has become stronger and stronger, and the bad aspect is that the driver and occupant will be more under more pressure to interact with information during the driving process. Vehicle-mounted HMI has long been developed from the initial lack of information interaction to the current excessive information interaction, and the interaction logic behind it has been completely subverted.
The most important challenge facing the current in-vehicle HMI design is how to clearly and simply display the most needed parts to the driver and passenger from the diversified information and functions, and can interact with the driver and passenger more directly.
Third, the six major trends that are important for the future user experience of in-vehicle HMI
In fact, the automotive HIM design is influenced by the ideas of many subdivision modules, including product function configuration, interior design, market competitor benchmarking, market crowd, hardware and software constraints, functional requirements, interaction design, visual design and other more than a dozen dimensions. It is a comprehensive discipline, and the requirements for designers are more stringent.
At present, the market is in a period of rapid development, the relevant design theories and development routes have not yet formed a unified system, and consumers' experience of vehicle-mounted HMI has not yet formed an inherent aesthetic and requirements. Therefore, major car companies are innovating in different related fields, and the design of intelligent vehicles based on in-vehicle HMI has entered a period of controversy.
However, in the continuous exploration and development of major car companies, they have also revealed some commonalities in the development of vehicle HMI design, which are worthy of our in-depth study.
Simply put, there are the following six trends, which can help us find the future optimization direction of various car companies:
1. Car screens are becoming more and more huge
As the most direct information interaction window, the car screen is becoming larger and the bigger screen and the giant screen are the current popular trends, including BYD's 21-inch screen, the ideal triple screen, and the liftable triple screen of Lantu, which are the innovations of car companies on the screen. However, from the perspective of the actual use effect, how to do a good job in the experience of the car screen, many car companies have not figured out, many consumers think that these large screen screens are currently like a large IPAD placed on the car.
Therefore, from the direct feedback of the market, there is still a lot of room for optimization in the interactive design and functional development of the large-screen giant screen. But at present, there is no car company on the market that is perfect, which gives HMI designers a lot of room to play.
2. HuD will weaken the status of the big screen
HUD is also commonly known as the head-up display technology, the earliest application in the cockpit of fighter jets, with the breakthrough of electrical technology in recent years, more and more car companies are also equipped with related hardware.
The current on-board HUD projects a small part of the driving information and navigation information directly on the front glass in front of the driver. The biggest benefit of HUD technology is that it can ensure safety, and the driver no longer has to look down at the dashboard or turn his head to look at the center console to obtain the required information as before, and the relevant information can be displayed directly on the glass, and the driver can directly look at the projection area on the front windshield. This technology ensures that at any time, the driver's eyes can be fixed on the front, no visual blind spots appear, and safety accidents are avoided.
In some new energy vehicles, after equipped with HUD, the dashboard has been deleted, that is, there is no longer a traditional dashboard after entering the car, and the relevant information and functions have been replaced by huD. From this point of view, HUD can be seen as the terminator of the large screen, and how to play its interactive function is worthy of in-depth study.
And at present, with the intelligent revolution brought by VR (virtual reality) technology, it also gives more functions to the current HUD, Apollo Xiaodu vehicle also debuted AR-HUD, combined with the current HUD technology, high-precision map and VR after the combination of virtual reality navigation applications, is a multi-technology integration of innovation, and this new fusion technology will greatly enhance the experience of vehicle HMI.
3. DMS functions and application scenarios will be further expanded
The DMS function is fatigue driving detection, which is a new technical application. Many domestic car companies are equipped with relevant hardware, the principle is to identify the driver's driving state and dangerous behavior by configuring a high-precision camera on the A pillar on the cockpit driver's side, and to give the driver real-time feedback through the steering wheel vibration or alarm tone, which is a subdivision application of automotive safety technology.
As part of the on-board HMI, by extracting the "micro-memes" during the driver's fatigue state or the head movement state during distraction, the car can define different levels of dangerous behavior and trigger early warnings, combined with the relevant auxiliary safety technology, which can greatly ensure vehicle safety.
With the research of major manufacturers, this technology has further evolved the function of live detection in the car, which is to avoid the function of careless drivers forgetting other members in the car, and many tragedies can be avoided through this function.
4. Face id
Face id is a face brush authentication method introduced by mobile phones instead of Touch Id, and now the face id function is built into the car, which can provide a more convenient operation experience.
For example, your daughter-in-law has driven your car, and when you get in the car, the car will automatically call up your usage habits, atmosphere lights, seat angles, mirror distance, driving mode, etc.
This camera can also be used to detect the whole inside of the car, child care, automatic driving safety monitoring, etc., to achieve the use of one camera and multiple functions.
5. In-car voice is extreme
At present, the competition around voice interaction technology is very fierce.
The brand car companies of the new forces are relatively leading in the development of this area, in addition to completing the function of basic voice, they also focus on creating personalized brands, and have high requirements for emotion, anthropomorphism, brand transmission personality and attitude. Most traditional car companies are based on the technology of established suppliers, and the development will be relatively slow.
In the actual driving scenario, the on-board HMI voice interaction experience is indeed average, and some voice feedback is slightly "stupid", but it cannot be said that the technology itself is not good. I believe that as speech technology continues to evolve, the processing power of complex languages increases, and ultimately it will help drivers and occupants easily maneuver the vehicle.
6. Multimode interactive exploration
"Multimodal" refers to the fusion of multiple senses, including five states of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
Due to the different speeds of interactive feedback of information input, the five-state senses also have different response accuracies in different scene tasks. Visual and auditory access to information accounts for 94% of the total and remains the mainstream channel for interaction.
Nowadays, car companies are basically doing the simplification of physical cases, but the price is that drivers and occupants need to re-cultivate new habits. In the field of gestures, the gestures of the new forces are slower than the development of foreign companies, more of an entertainment nature, and the practicality is not high enough.
Although more resources are currently focused on voice interaction, the speed of the car machine system to the reception of sound and behavior is not the same, and the physical buttons can never be outlawed.
Today's small talk ends here, full of dry goods!
This article was originally published by @Shiji Idler on everyone is a product manager, and reproduction without permission is prohibited
The title image is from Unsplash and is based on the CC0 protocol