Self-Driving Car User Interface
We were tasked with creating a User Interface for a self driving car. In this task, I chose to redesign the BMW i3 because I felt the design, while functional lacked the usability that would benefit drivers. With that in mind, we were asked to approach this project from the lens of a car that is fully autonomous, thus adding a new element of challenge for me as a designer.
Step 1: Research
My research was as followed, breaking down existing User Interface for cars, collaborating with class mates to create an empathy map and formulating my own user research in order to gain insight into what the end user would need.
So here we have the screen breakdowns of both the Tesla S Model 3 and the BMW i3, respectively.
My empathy map in attempt to understand what a potential end user might want.
The following is the Questionnaire I asked to people through my Instagram about their experiences with driving and driving with technology.
The persona that resulted from my user research
As well as the potential scenario set out for the prototype
Step 2: Design
Armed with the knowledge from my research, I set out to design to reflect the things I have learned from the insight I have gained.
Initial sketches, trying to figure out my color palette, and initial design.
Below is my first initial screens, of note is the navigation button along right hand size to make it easier for the driver to access.
The second version of my homepages were created after getting the feed back of:
Forgetting to add emotion, i.e. the first iteration was pretty lifeless and unexciting.
The active state boarder was too large and obtrusive.
I was lacking universal things like battery level, date/time and connectivity such as Bluetooth and WiFi.
After receiving feedback, I needed to add more features to create more usability since this was a self-driving car. One of the most important features I designed was received from my user feed back. I asked the question “What do you do when you are riding in a ride-sharing app?”, because I thought it would accurately represent what it felt like to be in an “autonomous” car. The most recurring answer was, Listen to music / media and relaxing. That translated into my project meant primary focus on media as well as the control of where the user would be sitting.
So, Here’s the Final Design.
With all the feedback from Professors and colleagues, I was able to design a User Interface for the BMW i3. The following is the prototype as well as some user scenarios.