Editor's introduction: From Tesla's FSD to Weilai's NAD, more and more car manufacturers are now taking autonomous driving as the selling point of vehicles, and automatic driving is getting closer and closer to us. In the HIP design of the vehicle, there is no doubt that safety is still the first goal, in addition, what other points need to be paid attention to? Let's take a look.
Today, more and more automakers are using autonomous driving capabilities as a selling point for vehicles, from Tesla's FSD to Niolai's NAD, cars that lack the ability to drive automatically (assisted) can hardly be called smart electric vehicles. Although today's immature automatic driving accidents occur frequently, it is undeniable that automatic driving is getting closer and closer to us, when various manufacturers are working on automatic driving, how will the experience design of HMI develop?
First, security remains the first objective
Time and time again "automatic driving" accidents, with the lesson of blood proved that there is no absolutely safe automatic driving at this stage, in the design of the HMI interface, safety is still the most important factor, the presentation of information, the color of the interface must be based on safety, to help users understand and complete the interactive operation faster.
1) Traffic safety related signs are placed at the highest level
According to the requirements of the national standard regulations, the front windshield glass defogging, which directly affects the safety of driving, as a mandatory sign, should be placed at the top of the interaction level to ensure the fastest completion of the operation.
Most car companies will put the icon on the dock bar permanently
2) Clear visual contrast
Properly sized fonts and clear color contrasts help users get things done quickly, avoiding safety hazards caused by prolonged visual attention spans.
A mature car font system should have a clear font rating, through the thickness and size of the font, to clarify different interactive functions and usage scenarios. Highly clear text helps drivers reduce browsing time and decision-making time, thereby reducing cognitive and visual distractions.
Due to the different users' different perception of the size of the font, the adjustable dynamic font system is gradually being used for the car OS.
Baidu in-vehicle ecological open platform font specifications
The interface color of HMI directly affects the user's operation safety and experience, and traditional car manufacturers often use a dark interface, with obvious contrast, and can reduce glare under strong light. With the improvement of vehicle capacity and the differentiated needs of different users, more and more car companies provide dark and light themes for users to choose.
The light-colored interface of the Xiaopeng Xmart
Considering the influence of real lighting, the contrast ratio of icons, text and other images must be at least 4.5:1, and in the light color mode updated by NIO 3.1.0, the contrast between text and background color is 9.9:1, which ensures that the information is accurately presented while meeting the user's comfort reading.
Nio 3.1.0 updated light color mode
Second, the interface that can be understood at a glance
With the increase of vehicle functions, the amount of information in the HMI interface is also increasing synchronously, the HMI carries the user's input in the car and the output of information, and the interface design that can balance the amount of information and readability is one of the keys to improving the user experience.
The different presentation of QQ music on the PC side and the car machine side represents two different ways of information display, one is business-oriented and the other is efficiency-oriented.
The differences between QQ music on different platforms
The improvement of autonomous driving capabilities can release the user's attention in the car to a certain extent, but the requirements for information interaction and communication are also increasing, and more attention will be paid to the improvement of the experience dimension.
An in-vehicle interface with autonomous driving capabilities should do the following:
Accurately and quickly communicate the current performance status of the vehicle
Advance message notification is made before guiding the user to action
Communicate driving environment information and estimate possible interactions with the environment
Standardized interaction process, avoiding too many complex interaction methods
The ability to interact with autonomous driving continues to improve
Third, the improvement of usability
One of the biggest challenges for HMI designers is to ensure the usability of the design, and the improvement of usability is not only in the early stage of user insight and research, but also inseparable from the influence of technology and continuous iteration.
In the past, in order to ensure the availability of the car machine, the traditional OEMs will design the on-board system as simple as possible, and in the era of automatic driving, more user demand has exploded, and higher requirements have been put forward for the availability of HMI.
1) Design consistency
Consistency here refers not only to the consistency of visual colors, but also to the consistency of interaction methods. I believe that in the past, everyone will have a similar experience, when replacing a new car from an old car, it will be necessary to re-familiarize yourself with the various operations of the vehicle, which is due to the cognitive difference caused by different functional layouts and sign prompts.
In the design of the opening of the auxiliary driving mode, Tesla and Xiaopeng use the pocket block control, and Weilai has a separate start button, if the difference in consistency is too large, it will also directly affect the user experience.
Differences in interaction between different brands
2) Meet more detailed user needs
Today's driving crowd age group is gradually expanding, different age groups also have different user needs, in the design of HMI, visual guidance size, color, audio indication volume, sound frequency, should be targeted optimization for different user groups.
In today's deepening aging, mobile phone manufacturers are exploring aging mobile phone systems, and perhaps in the near future we can also see the elderly version of the car machine system.
Clearer interaction cues
Fourth, enhance mutual trust between people and vehicles
The process of people accepting new things is a process of building trust, and as autonomous driving matures, how HMIs build trusting relationships with people becomes crucial. In the process of automatic driving, the vehicle drives according to the expectations of the driver, and the car provides a pleasant experience through additional functions, all of which need to be built on the trust between people and the car.
Improving users' trust in HMI can be considered from the following aspects:
Informs the user of the current status of the vehicle's autonomous driving
Reminder of driving events during autonomous driving trips
Provide timely feedback on users' actions
Give users more control over the HMI
Zhiji took the lead in introducing the concept of confidence communication in automatic driving, combining road driving conditions and current processing capabilities to prompt, and communicating the status of the system in advance to help users establish a sense of trust with HMI through signal markings.
Confidence signal of the intellectual self
Fifth, people-centered design thinking
In each stage of the design of the human-machine interface, the human-centered design is the most important consideration, the car machine as an information bridge between people and vehicles, the need to convey the vehicle driving status, environmental information, media and entertainment and other information to the user.
The user receives all kinds of information at the same time during the driving process
The improvement of automatic driving capabilities also means that the car machine system will have more functions, and the user will also have more personalized needs, according to the use of the habit of function recommendation, high-frequency application prioritization, intelligent information classification, through the insight of user behavior, the car machine system should be able to better predict user needs, bring a smooth use experience.
NIO's customizable shortcut control page allows users to prioritize functions according to their own needs.
NIO's custom shortcut control page
Sixth, more entertainment functions
Under the wave of intelligence, the cockpit is not only a moving seat, but also a space for entertainment and leisure. Automatic driving gives us more possibilities for entertainment in the cockpit, and the future of cockpit entertainment will become the continuous exploration direction of various car companies.
Everyone has become accustomed to the audio and video entertainment in the car, but the in-car game entertainment is difficult to see in most cars, Tesla took the lead in the in-car game attempt, through the steering wheel or external controller for game control. On the Model S Plaid, you can play AAA masterpieces such as "Cyberpunk 2077", and it is completely possible to swipe copies on the way to work in the future.
Tesla Model S Plaid
Saved money on the simulator
In the electric concept SUV Seven released by Hyundai in 21 years, the sunroof is also part of the car's interactive interface, and the transparent OLED screen not only has a better audio and video experience, but also can be broadcast live at any time, and perhaps soon we will be able to see a lot of Internet celebrity in-car anchors.
Modern Concept SUV "Seven"
7. Summary
Although L5-level automatic driving is still not far from us, the self-driving road test videos of various car companies also reflect that the proportion of pure human driving is decreasing day by day, and in the foreseeable time, the experience design of HMI will also undergo huge changes in the era of automatic driving.
This article was originally published by @TapHub Knock Workshop and is not reproduced without permission.
The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol