Editor's Introduction: HMI is one of the manifestation forms of human-computer interaction, which is a specific term for the information interaction between people and cars, and HMI design is to bring a good experience to the interaction between people and cars. What is an HMI? How can HMI designers effectively improve the interactive experience between people and cars? Through the analysis of the HMI concept, the summary of the characteristics of the vehicle system, and the combing of the development of the vehicle system, the author of this article shares the relevant knowledge of HMI design with you
1. What is automotive HMI?
1. The basic concept of HMI
Many students who want to enter the HMI design are UI and UX designers, so in order to let everyone understand HMI more comprehensively, the author will make a horizontal comparison between HMI and UX and UI
UI: User interface, i.e. user interface. The user interacts through the product's screen guide to complete the operation.
UX: User experience, i.e. user experience. Refers to the user's experience of interacting with the entire product in the process of using the product.
HMI: Human-Machine Interaction, that is, the information interaction between people and cars. Bring information interaction between the car and the user when the user is driving the car.
In the interaction information between people and cars can be transmitted through many channels, central control large screens, switches, buttons, voice systems, etc., these channels together help drivers complete driving tasks on the basis of, but also to bring drivers a good experience. The dimensions of good user experience are also different, such as smooth interaction feelings, timely feedback, and efficient communication of information.
2. HMI usage scenarios and carriers
Understand the related concepts of HMI, and then introduce the needs of HMI users? What are the use cases for HMI? Presented by which carriers?
HMI user demand: the characteristics of large-scale goods in automobiles determine the attributes of their low-frequency consumption, and in addition to the function of the car to assist the driver to complete the driving task, the most important thing is the safety and stability of the guarantee, so the HMI also needs to be integrated into the inherent genes of these cars.
HMI usage scenario: Vehicle-mounted HMI is the interaction between people and cars in the car scene, due to the vehicle structure design and the driver's behavior needs, the driver usually uses the right hand to interact.
HMI presentation carrier: central control large screen, switch, button, instrument panel, co-pilot display, rear display, etc. The following is an introduction to a few of the more common HMI carriers~
(1) Central control screen: the car central control screen, can control part of the vehicle facilities, connect the reversing image and other functions, driving entertainment and driving pleasure and drivers also have an increasingly close dependence relationship with the driver, in the future car display will be more and more cross-era technology connection;
(2) Dashboard: The current pure LCD dashboard has replaced the traditional dashboard and become the mainstream trend, the traditional dashboard includes: pure machinery, lamp display, segment code, etc.;
(3) Rear display: The entertainment attributes of the rear display are relatively strong, mainly with video, music, games, weather forecasts and other functions, which can be exchanged according to the different needs of the rear passengers, which is an effective way to optimize the riding experience of the rear passengers.
3. HMI market and prospects
The following is an analysis of the market and development prospects of HMI from the three dimensions of industry wind, policy and consumer
Industry wind: the prospect of HMI does not need to be repeated too much ~ As the world's top Internet companies continue to pour into the car track, the development prospects of HMI's industry are self-evident. From the top international Internet companies Google Android auto, Apple CarPlay, to the top domestic companies Huawei car application, Baidu's Car Life and Apollo, Ali's Zebra, Tencent's Ai in Car have entered the game;
Policy: The government attaches great importance to the development of automobile informatization and intelligence, and focuses on supporting the development of such high-tech industries;
Consumer market: Consumers are also paying more and more attention to the driving experience of the car, whether the HMI matches the interior accessories is also an important reference condition, and these have also become the key factors affecting whether the vehicle is traded, so the user experience is also an important reference for the car design factory.
After introduction, I believe that everyone is also optimistic about the development and prospects of this industry, there will be more designers to share the dividends of HMI development, will want to further understand the HMI ~
Second, HMI design concept
The user experience system of HMI is set based on the relationship between people and vehicles, which is composed of four systems from top to bottom, and the design of HMI can have a positive effect on these systems.
1. HMI design principles
What are the design principles of HMI? It has a close connection with UI/UX, and based on the special properties and usage scenarios of in-vehicle HMIs, the design principles of HMIs are not the same as those of other design fields.
(1) Light operation: In the specific scene of human-vehicle interaction, the driver usually uses the left hand to carry out the basic operation required for driving, and the right hand to carry out the interactive operation of the HMI system, and perform multiple operation tasks at the same time. The safety of the vehicle in the non-stationary state under the simultaneous multi-tasking is risky, so the HMI is first of all to ensure the safety of the driver as the premise of information interaction design, so that the driver can easily complete the operation of the HMI system during the driving process.
(2) Efficient browsing: With the continuous enrichment of people's lives, car drivers have higher and higher requirements for HMI to have comprehensive functions, and more and more functions and information are required in the "large-screen" HMI system. Therefore, in the design of HMI, it is very important to bring more efficient information browsing efficiency to the driver, and it is necessary to refine the information to ensure that the information is easy to understand, accurate and clear, and easy to identify, so as to support the efficient browsing of the driver.
In the information hierarchy setting, to allow the driver to capture the most critical information more quickly, it can be achieved through comparative design techniques to ensure that the driver can also have efficient browsing when driving the vehicle, reducing the driver's visual capture cost.
(3) Instant feedback: In the actual driving scenario, the relationship between the change of road conditions, routes, and signals is very complex, and the driver has to spend a high cost of energy, so in the information interaction with HMI, it is necessary to achieve rapid feedback, which can be timely feedback through visual, touch, voice, etc., so the design of HMI should also pay attention to the efficiency of information transmission.
2. HMI design features
I have just introduced the design principles of HMI for everyone, so what are the design features of HMI design based on the above three design principles?
(1) Usage scenario: The design principle of HMI is based on the special use scenario of HMI, HMI is located in the middle area of the front cockpit, on the right side of the main cockpit, the distance between the eyes and the screen is 50 to 60cm, so the driver needs to view the content in the screen by squinting when driving tasks. Such use cases need to consider the differences in HMI design, such as the screen size of the hardware, the font size of the software, graphics, icons, colors, etc.;
(2) Brand perception: The scale of car companies in the automobile market continues to expand, and the head car companies pay more and more attention to the differentiated design of the brand, leaving a deeper impression on users through unique brands. Today's users like interior fashionable and quality design, good HMI design is not the core factor of buying a car, but it is a must-have factor. With the emergence of more and more models in the same car company, the user portrait of each model is gradually refined, because it is more necessary to customize HMI, from style design to brand perception, it must be positioned to accurate user portrait group to match it.
(3) User experience: The HMI interaction behavior is highly fixed, but the interaction mode is a combination of multiple: voice, touch, button, button. The interaction between these modes is a relatively high-frequency operation, combined with the use scenario of the HMI, so the HMI is required to have a low fault tolerance rate, but also to consider the actual operation of the hot zone.
Third, the concept of HMI interaction
Next, we will introduce the interactive related concepts of HMI in detail, and introduce the interactive mode, interactive mode, interactive copywriting, and interactive feedback of HMI respectively
1. Interactive mode
HMI interaction mode is a comprehensive mode of interaction through feedback information provided by multiple sensory channels, including sensory participation in vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste, etc., and if you want to obtain the participation of these senses, you must go through its corresponding human organs, such as eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hands, etc., and the design of HMI is also designed around these senses, and in more application scenarios, it requires the common cooperation between multiple senses, so HMI is also called multi-sensory interaction mode.
This multi-sensory, integrated interaction model can make interaction easier in the car, increase the fun of interaction, and eliminate the need to repeat mechanical interactions.
2. Interaction mode
There are many common ways of interaction: hard buttons, soft touch, voice, gestures, etc., the following is a detailed introduction to these four common interaction methods
(1) Key interaction: The interactive form of the key has a long history, composed of hardware parts, usually keys, buttons, buttons through a simple icon, the button is with a strong directional icon gesture operation method, drivers have long been accustomed to such interaction methods.
(2) Touch interaction: The central control large screen is the most common part of the use of touch interaction, and the emergence of the central control large screen has also brought great changes to the interaction of HMI. Touch interaction includes: click, double click, long press, slide, one-handed dragging, two-handed dragging, etc., but in addition to clicking other ways are easy to exceed the 2-second safety time range, such operations in the complex driving process is too cumbersome, so that the impact on driving safety, therefore, the driver in the process of driving tasks, click is the most common and relatively low operating cost of the interactive way.
So in which scenarios is the interaction method applied? Next, I will bring you a full of dry goods, please yard ~
Click: buttons, icons, tab toggles, checkboxes, controls, etc.;
Double-click: enlarge the picture, navigate the map;
Long press: Edit after selecting;
Slide: homepage function card, negative screen, list, air conditioning wind direction, temperature, progress bar (volume, brightness, video, music, radio, etc.);
One-handed drag: edit and change the position after selecting;
Drag and drop with both hands: enlarge the picture, navigate the map.
(3) Voice interaction: Voice interaction can effectively reduce the user's cost of payment, in the driving operation, can be distracted from the minimum energy to complete the task of the operation instructions.
(4) Gesture interaction: The gesture interaction of the car refers to the system that controls the car through the transformation and combination of gestures, which can allow the owner to realize the instructions issued faster, such as switching online radio stations, switching songs, flipping pages, volume mediation, and hanging up the phone. Some of these gestures evolved from touch interactions, and some summarized people's operating habits.
In the vehicle system, the advantage of gesture interaction is that it can be carried out with "not so accurate" operation, in the process of driving the driver, the principle of HMI is to make the driver's attention focus on the unpredictable road conditions, reduce the attention to the command operation; and the advantages and disadvantages of things are often combined, the disadvantage of gesture interaction is that such interactive behavior is relatively rare, so the driver needs to have a deeper memory of such operations, but for drivers who are not familiar with the operation, Recalling interactive gestures while driving can easily lead to too much distraction from interaction.
3. Interaction Information
(1) Content shows: In the process of driving, drivers should focus most of their energy on driving the car, and the proportion of time and energy spent on operating HMI is very low. Therefore, it is required that the HMI has the function of quickly transmitting information, so to achieve the rapid transmission of information, you can start from the following aspects:
The typography design of the HMI, through which important information is placed in the area most easily seen by the driver;
The information level of the HMI shows that this is relatively basic, and the effect of rapid transmission is achieved by strengthening the important information level and weakening the secondary information level;
The integrity of HMI information should ensure that more perfect information is presented in a limited interface, minimize unnecessary thinking caused by the user's operation, avoid unnecessary page jumps, and enable users to grasp the information they want to know within 1-2 seconds;
The unity of HMI information, in the layout of important information, in the system to achieve unity, cultivate the user's inertial thinking, a thing repeated to do more naturally will be skilled.
(2) Operation of the hot zone: The design of the HMI should fully take into account the driver's use experience, (involving some ergonomic knowledge) The driver's body is subject to certain constraints during the driving process, so the finger wants to touch the screen far away from itself will consume extra attention, but also take into account the driver's vision factor.
Therefore, as far as possible, the high-frequency operation area and the key information area are placed in the operation hot area, and the distance between the operation area and the driver is shortened as much as possible, and the information content presented is clearer, otherwise other information can be placed on the right side of the screen.
(3) Interactive copywriting: HMI interactive copywriting must be concise and easy to understand, so that the driver can complete the operation in the shortest time with the least amount of energy, do not have ambiguity, and understand the feedback brought by the interaction
Clear indication:
The expression of interactive copywriting must be clear and unambiguous, and the rejection is ambiguous.
For example, a chestnut: When a user uploads an avatar image, the upload fails.
Bitter Chestnut: Avatar upload failed
Sweet Chestnut: Avatar upload failed, upload image resolution is too low
Sweet chestnuts not only give feedback to the user results, but also tell the user the reasons for the unsatisfactory results, so that the user further knows what to do to get positive feedback
Hierarchical:
Here is the most basic concept of contrast, can strengthen the main copy, weaken the secondary copy to help users distinguish the importance of information, in the shortest possible time to read the most wanted information content, to help users understand, here is not too much to repeat ~
Copywriting streamlined:
When you use an app, when you see the feedback pop-up window, will you only look at the bolder and more refined text, and ignore the following auxiliary text? Want to click on the "OK" button quickly?
Users are "impatient children", so when designing copywriting, we should refine the copywriting and reduce the user's reading cost as much as possible, after all, a high proportion of users are not willing to read a word ~ directly explain the necessary information, remove the actual action guidance is not of great significance, grasp the key points, tell the user the current state and what to do next.
Copy consistency:
To ensure the consistency of interactive copywriting, in the preparation of similar copywriting, clarify the attributes of words and the order of word combinations.
Shorten the path:
If you really need long copy to illustrate, you need to provide users with a way to shorten the path of operation, so that users can clearly know "I just need to do this" after reading the information.
Bitter Chestnut: "I see", "SURE"
Sweet Chestnut: "Go", "Go Now", "Go Set"
At the interactive level, it is possible to clarify what Kochi users do while reducing the user's operating costs.
4. Interactive feedback
Interactive feedback in HMI is usually expressed in three forms: visual, touch, and speech. Feedback should directly and clearly inform the driver of the most wanted information.
(1) Visual feedback: Taking the reversing image as an example, when the vehicle is reversing, the central control screen will automatically plan the reversing trajectory for the driver, and if there will be a scratching impact, a red warning message will appear.
(2) Touch feedback: The feedback of touch operation is different from the feedback of hardware button operation, there are certain security risks, therefore, vibration feedback and dynamic feedback have become a clear feedback mechanism based on the operator, there are more scenes for mobile terminals, and the HMI is limited by the use of the scene The scope of application is not extensive, so it should start from the visual and tactile level.
(3) Voice feedback: the importance of the voice interaction function in the vehicle system mentioned earlier, the use of voice dialogue to feedback the user's operation, is the user to use a lower cost to obtain feedback channels, can be through the intelligent dialogue mechanism to comprehensively explain the problem, in the future Beard will also specially produce an HMI voice interaction article to share with everyone ~
Fourth, the landing of HMI
After having a certain understanding of the basic concept, design and interaction of HMI, everyone must be curious about how HMI landed? What specific link is the HMI in the overall project link? Let me take you on a closer look!
1. Vehicle development process
Before introducing the HMI development process for everyone, let's briefly introduce the development process of the whole vehicle for everyone, so that you can clearly know which part of the HMI is in the vehicle development process.
The whole can be divided into five links:
(1) Product strategy: After market research and user demand analysis, the depot looks for a relatively blank area in the market, formulates the corresponding market strategy, and formulates the strategic objectives of the entire product.
(2) Conceptual design: Conceptual design is divided into two stages, after the preliminary market research and user demand analysis, summarize the data and transform it into the design goal of the product, and obtain the initial concept; after the product functional design and development are fully communicated, the project objectives are formally confirmed, and the next specific design process can be carried out.
(3) Design and development: refine and improve product design, HMI design is one of the links.
(4) Engineering vehicles: including further optimization of systems, parts, etc., and production of prototype vehicles.
(5) Manufacturing: After confirming the prototype car, determine the mass production trial production, carry out production performance, and after comprehensive verification, the vehicle can start mass production
2. HMI development process
From the macro perspective of overall development, the development of HMI is only one of the small links, but as automakers pay more and more attention to user experience, HMI designers will participate in more links in the future. HMI designers are also subdivided into many positions: user research, interaction design, visual design, animation design, sound design, three-dimensional design, etc., and designers also need to intersect with students in marketing, planning, technology, branding and other departments.
So what is the specific development process for HMI?
(1) Demand review: through market research and user research to explore specific needs, the source channels of demand can be divided into three categories: company strategy, user market, technology development, after the summary of demand, the need to analyze and review the needs with higher value, such as: the application scenarios of the demand, specific functions, user portraits, core content, etc.
The core three elements of the requirements review: value, function, and landing.
Value: What is the starting point for demand initiation? What is the value? Quantify value;
Function: In order to realize value, what functions does the product need as a support? For example: good-looking, easy-to-use, novel, high-tech, high-quality, etc.;
Landing: Analyze how to land and the landing cost for each function point.
In general, a requirements review is the foundation for a grand project, with comprehensive and meticulous planning for the project to ensure its smooth completion.
(2) Creative design: the design stage is divided into two stages: initial and late stages, after fully understanding the product requirements in the early stage of design, combined with the content and data of market research and user needs, the core content of the requirements is extracted into the design goals, the initial design stage is carried out, and the product students and development students are docked after the output is established, until the formal project goals are established, enter the late stage of the design, and begin the design of specific processes and other details.
(3) Landing evaluation: After the completion of the design stage, it is necessary to enter the verification procedure, pass the bench simulation test, or provide specific evaluation vehicles and training vehicles, as well as further analysis and quality assurance road tests, and carry out experience-level verification. After running the verification procedure, we entered the traditional links of system development, hardware development, software development, and vehicle testing
(4) Development and testing: After running the previous procedure, the final stage of the design is to follow up the development and verification link, after confirming the prototype, determine the mass production trial production, carry out production acting, and after comprehensive verification, the vehicle can be put into mass production.
After the introduction of HMI, I believe that everyone has a basic understanding of HMI, welcome to comment, collect, like, forward, the author will update more HMI related knowledge in the future, to avoid getting lost remember to click a "concern" yo ~
This article was originally published by @Beard Chat Design everyone is a product manager, and reproduction without permission is prohibited.
The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.