Don't know what automotive HMI design is? Come in and take you a quick look

Editor's introduction: With the strengthening of people's environmental awareness and the support of national policies, intelligent new energy vehicles have been vigorously developed, in order to meet the needs of consumers, the demand for automotive HMI design has increased greatly, and automotive brands need to work automotive HMI design. This article revolves around the design of automotive HMI, and is recommended for those who are interested in it.

Today, I would like to share with you the "Automotive HMI". At present, the development momentum of intelligent electric vehicles is getting higher and higher, and the car HMI design related to intelligent electric vehicles has also become the focus of various brands, and the car HMI design is at an unprecedented new height.

Automotive HMI design is getting hotter and hotter, and it is necessary for us to understand and pay attention to this concept. With the popularity of smart new energy vehicles, the demand for automotive HMI design will also increase in the future.

If you don't know much about automotive HMI design, let's explore what automotive HMI is, the development process of automotive HMI, and the principles that automotive HMI design needs to focus on.

1. What is automotive HMI?

What is automotive HMI? Let's first split this concept into two keywords: car + HMI.

First, let's talk about HMI, which is the abbreviation of Human Machine Interface, "human-machine interface", also called human-machine interface.

HMI (Human Machine Interface) is the medium for interaction and information exchange between systems and users, which realizes the conversion between the internal form of information and the form acceptable to humans.

Knowing the definition of HMI, we added the prefix "car", which refers to the medium of human-computer interaction between users and automotive systems.

Of course, the car HMI is not limited to the interface, but as a collection of functions, such as the car dashboard, HUD head-up display, interactive medium (voice, haptics), etc., are all included in the car HMI design.

Second, talk about the development of automotive HMI

The automotive HMI we are talking about was first introduced in the early 1980s.

At that time, the functions required of ordinary cars were rapidly increasing, and one of the tasks of designers was to provide drivers with control to ensure that drivers could use and manage these new functions.

For the addition of new features, two main methods are followed:

One is to add mock controls and add physical buttons for new features. For example, if you want to turn on the air conditioner in the car, you need the air conditioner switch control button; if you want to listen to music in the car, you need to add a song change/adjust volume button.

The second is to add a car screen system with dynamic content. For example, a dynamic gauge that shows the speed of a car, a dynamic map that can be navigated.

The first method is more popular in German cars, while the second method is more popular in American and Japanese cars.

Although cars are now using large screens in the car to replace the physical buttons, the physical buttons of The German cars are still more than the Japanese cars.

Buick Cars first introduced the car screen system in 1986, where users can control the radio station and weather in a monochrome touch display.

Another typical example is Nissan's CUE-X concept car, which features an in-vehicle system with touchable and color graphics. It can be seen that the position and design of the functional controls in the car at that time are very similar to the current car interior.

Today's car HMIs are more like digital cockpits where car control centers and entertainment systems are mixed, offering more and more powerful features while having entertainment attributes.

Third, automotive HMI design focuses on these principles

Designing an HMI that is beautiful and effective requires a combination of artistry and functionality. Artistry and functionality should work together on an equal footing and harmoniously, immersing the user in the experience. Here are some basic design principles:

1. Give the user a sense of control

The automotive HMI should always inform the user of the current status within a reasonable time and with appropriate feedback.

This is especially important when the user is driving. If the system takes a certain action without notifying the driver, it is likely to cause interference to the driver and have bad consequences.

When a driver drives a car, he is actually controlling the car to behave in a variety of ways. This is both a control and a kind of feedback, controlling the function of the car, the result of the feedback function. For example, various dynamic information such as indicator lights and speed meters are used to inform the driver of the current status at any time.

2. Follow the "safety first" rule

The main benefit of the HMI system is that it helps us avoid accidents. Modern cars are equipped with many sensors that collect information and then use that information to track driving conditions.

The HMI system can monitor the situation in real time to prevent traffic collisions and accidents. System responses to conditions include:

Reactive: The system notifies the driver of what has just happened, such as low tire pressure or fatigue driving, and warns the driver.

Proactive: The system analyzes the situation, predicts what is likely to happen, and warns the driver based on the potentially bad situation. For example, the system analyzes weather conditions and advises users to avoid driving on days when the road is icy.

When designing system responses, it's important not to overwhelm users with a lot of information, but to develop a reliable notification strategy. The feedback sent to the user should be:

Valuable: Users only see feedback that they care about.

Timely: Feedback should be sent to users accurately when needed.

Clear: When designing feedback for information, it is important to follow modularity and gestalt principles to ensure that users can quickly understand the meaning of the feedback expression. The easier this information is to understand, the better the security.

3. Minimized cognitive load

Cognitive load is the cost of brain power and thinking that needs to be paid to use the system. The smaller the cost of the user when using the product, the more simple the product is at least easy to use.

Then again, if an in-vehicle system requires the user to bear a large amount of cognitive load, it means that there is a lot of room for improvement in the system.

First, don't force users to remember information about car driving. As we all know, users can't remember much information in short-term memory, especially multiple confusing features or abstract concepts.

Think ahead about the problems that users may encounter during the driving process, such as what is the cabin temperature? What music are you listening to right now? How to navigate to the mall? Based on these scenarios and problems, the system is designed to answer the user's questions.

Second, it is crucial to build an HMI based on an existing mental model. Why are the instruments and center controls of most cars similarly distributed?

In fact, these are all usage habits established in the user's interaction with the car, following a familiar design approach, which minimizes the amount of work required to learn to use the system.

4. Reduce unnecessary distractions

While driving, the driver has little reason to look at the phone because the HMI is able to do anything that can be done on the phone. Some people may say that the size of the large screen in the car is so large, it will attract the attention of the user and have a certain impact on driving.

So now more and more smart cars have launched a variety of on-board voice assistants, which use sound - rather than touch, as the main medium for users to interact with the system, through voice to control the scene, such as cutting songs, making calls, adjusting temperatures, etc.

5. Self-explanatory navigation experience

Discoverability (finding specific functionality in the system) and the navigation experience should be at the highest level of design.

Many in-vehicle systems now face a situation where there are too many levels of operation/too deep: users need to click many times to find the function they want to do.

This can be avoided by carefully planning the information architecture of the system and placing commonly used functions at the first level.

To adjust the height of the seat, we just need to move the handle next to the seat up and down. If the system is used to control the seat, the function of controlling the seat needs to be placed within the user's reach, otherwise it will increase the user's operating costs.

6. Improve visual effects

Under the influence of the U.S.-I.E. effect, users are more inclined to think that good-looking, attractive products are more practical.

Designers can improve the user's perceived attitude towards the system by improving the visual effects of the system. For example, rendering realistic 3D models for navigation can help users understand where they are now and where they are going faster, and get a great experience.

Verify that the HMI is reasonable, not only by measuring the time it takes for the operation to complete and the number of errors that occur, but also by focusing on user satisfaction.

When trying to test usability with real or potential users, ask the user, "How does this design make you feel?" ”。 If the user's experience is found to be feeling bad, the designer can ask more specific questions to identify areas for improvement.

Fourth, finally

Users have high expectations for the HMI of the car, and sometimes even decide whether to buy a car based on the quality of the car's HMI experience.

If you design an HMI system next time, you can benchmark these requirements:

Give the user a sense of control;

Provide good learning ability;

Avoid distractions;

Constantly understand user preferences and suggest changes;

Stimulates a positive emotional response from the user.

#专栏作家 #

This article was originally published by everyone who is a product manager, and reproduction without the permission of the author is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.