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Home ›Articles› Car man-machine interface is simpler than complex
Car manufacturers must choose the right design principles for car displays, otherwise distracted driving will face new risks. Authors: Chris Rockwell and Mark Palmer
It seems that larger car displays are inevitable. Mercedes-Benz has attracted great attention at CES in 2021. Its brand-new MBUX Hyperscreen, full-width dashboard display, and almost all future concept cars have their own version of ultra-wide high-definition display. Incorporates a wide range of head-up displays (HUD).
Although many consumers are excited about the appearance of these larger displays in the car, they do worry that they will increase the driver's attention. Larger, more dispersed displays may create a better and safer driving experience, but proper design principles are needed to achieve this.
Technology-centric design methods usually start with proving that a technology (such as a full-width display) is feasible, and then consider how it will really affect users. In contrast, the user-centered design process begins with experience, and then uses technology to meet user needs. A basic understanding of how people think, act, and feel is essential to creating the right solutions.
Just as outstanding engineers and designers can create cutting-edge technology, outstanding social scientists have also made groundbreaking discoveries about how humans experience the world. The research on sensation and perception has produced important theories, such as selective attention, situational awareness, signal detection theory, and unintentional blindness, which provide insights into how people perceive and interact with the world around them.
Most people are surprised to find that we don't see the world like videos or photos, but instead "sample" parts of the scene, letting our minds fill in the gaps based on what we are focusing on or distracting. The famous "Invisible Gorilla" test illustrates how incomplete our perception is. This test shows that when focusing on one activity, it is easy to ignore other things happening in the surrounding environment.
Applying this idea to car displays, the potential opportunities and pitfalls of its design become clear. The content displayed on the monitor becomes part of the world that the driver sees (or can't see). When the information is projected on the windshield, will it be “sampled” while nearby pedestrians are not noticed? When a text alert pops up in the cluster, did the driver notice the dog on the road? Will the extra visual cues on the monitor distract people from other important things?
The cooperation of forward-thinking engineers, designers and social scientists is the key to designing displays that will bring a safer and more satisfying driving experience
Lexant recently reviewed the augmented reality display, where five different arrows in the field of view all point to the position of the turn. It shows that as vision becomes more and more complex, it becomes harder for people to notice important information. The cooperation of forward-looking engineers, designers and social scientists is the key to designing displays that will bring a safer and more satisfying driving experience.
Lexant focuses and simplifies user-centered design insights, applying them to the following "design right" principles that should be applied to display design.
All the information in front of the driver is vying for attention. Some information is more important than others, and care should be taken to prioritize the most critical information. The main information is used to drive the car safely and effectively. Secondary information describes almost everything else, such as climate settings or media. The main information should be prioritized when driving, and the information needs to be easy to understand. Secondary information should not interfere with primary information.
Not all information is necessary at all times, but some information is vital at some times. To avoid information overload, the display should only show information that is important to the driver when needed. Intelligent systems using artificial intelligence can predict when drivers need specific information and present it to them when appropriate.
So far, cars have installed a display behind the steering wheel, a display in the center of the dashboard, and a limited head-up display (HUD) on the windshield. Larger and larger displays allow information to be distributed inside the car. The placement of information can increase or decrease mental effort.
In order to reduce the workload, the display can create consistent areas where the information presented has intuitive meaning. Adding redundant auditory and tactile information can further reduce the workload. Careful placement of relevant information can greatly improve usefulness and usability. If the driver needs to search for information, mental burden and distraction will increase.
The most useful information allows the driver to take immediate action. The less the driver interprets, translates, manipulates, and converts information, the faster the information becomes useful and the faster they react. HUD can distract the driver through text, or notify them whether they are visually associated with the environment, for example by "drawing" the lane during navigation. By providing information in a format that requires little thought, the display can reduce the amount of mental work required by the driver.
The design principle of "less is more" is essential to a safe driving experience. The larger the display area, the harder it is to follow. When automakers display large, full-width HD displays in their cars, they tend to fill in as much content as possible. Although this shows well, it does pose a risk to the driver. The more information provided at any time, the more time the driver will spend searching for it. Visual search equals distraction.
The driver monitoring system (DMS) is designed to track the behavior of the driver in a specific situation. This "protective" innovation is important because drivers may not understand their collaborative role when using various autonomous driving modes.
For example, the Mercedes-Benz Hyperscreen includes a passenger display, and it is understandable that the display has many entertainment options. To prevent the driver from being distracted, the system monitors the driver to see if they are viewing the passenger display. If it is, it will shut down. Larger distributed displays need to be smart enough to present information based on context and environment.
Automakers can unleash the potential of displays by restricting the way in which details and information are added to create a safe driving experience
There are multiple ways to interact with the car display. Touch screens, physical controls, steering wheel controls, voice recognition, and gesture input all have advantages and disadvantages. The eye-catching concept car usually relies on touch screen, voice and air gesture input to maintain a clean appearance, high-tech and minimalist design. However, human factors engineers will focus on the physical control of large-scale shape codes to reduce the psychological burden. It is important that experts collaborate to create attractive high-tech designs and understand the strengths and weaknesses of users.
The respected architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) put forward the motto "less is more" as a call for modernist design and architecture, which still applies today . Years later, designer Deiter Rams elaborated on this principle, declaring that good design is like a good British butler: when you need them, they are by your side, but in the background at all other times. Automakers can unleash the potential of displays by limiting the way they add details and information to an already rich and complex environment to create a safe driving experience.
About the author: Chris Rockwell is the founder and CEO of Lexant, a human experience consulting company; Mark Palmer is the COO of Lexant
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