Hop over and see for yourself.

See some examples below.

Volkswagen – VW R32
Volkswagen’s interface, seen here on the R32, uses a similar color scheme and button structure as the low-end one from Mercedes-Benz. With this one it is almost more difficult to see which labels correspond to which buttons.

Audi – Audi S5
Audi’s interface is very different, and color codes the various functions. For example, the text is amber if you are looking at music, and green if you are choosing a contact from your phone.

Infiniti – Infiniti G35
Infiniti uses a very distinct design that we like with nice, solid fonts. It is not entirely intuitive, though, and you have to press the Text button to see song names.

The idea that go me motivated to explore this as a thesis topic started off with the self initiated project. I could see a future scenario of a vehicle purchases also accompanied by a tailored mobile application that would be updated through the manufacturer and would offer various services and car monitoring capabilities both in car and away. This to me is inevitable and look forward to seeing how automotive companies will look at mobile applications and the deep interconnections with other applications in the future connected vehicle.

INTRO: While owner’s manuals are usually packed with valuable instructions, information and important warnings that you’ve probably never read they do have relevance when you purchase a new vehicle. Retrieving your vehicles information in a more visual non linear fashion can be achieved through a mobile application.

OWNERS MANUAL: As we push forward towards paperless documents, we can see evidence with various automotive manufacturers offering more vehicle manuals in a PDF downloadable format. Mobile applications of a owner’s vehicle manual can be used as a marketing tool or a utility tool for car owners to understand and maintain their vehicle.

Link here to find out about the project.

The second design exploration was again mobile related but looked at mobile devices in vehicles with how tablets can be integrated into the driving experience. The project looked at how a tablet can be used to control and monitor various infotainment duties, while explore the topic various interface solutions were purposed.

It was interesting to look at the tablet as the product and almost the car being the accessory to the tablet. Both mobile and tablet computing are continuing to make inroad to traditional products and helping shape new experiences.

Link here to find out about the project.

“People want entertainment options and they want to be able to take what they’re getting on other devices … into the car. Gary Wallace, ATX Group”

The next presentation I discovered was from John Cantwell master’s thesis, “Car Sharing: Applications and Implications,” this presentation highlights both the potential advantages and drawbacks of present-day car sharing. It considers how car sharing could affect the way we use and design cars, automotive infrastructure, and cities in the future.

This next presentation was given at the 2010 D-Crit Conference

“In lieu of flying cars, then, we must consider more pragmatic ways of using vehicles. This presentation looks at one possible solution along these lines—the system of car sharing. Embodied most prominently today by companies such as ZipCar, car sharing systems aim to address many of the problems endemic to private automobiles. Car sharing can significantly reduce the number of vehicles needed to serve a population and make more efficient use of resources such as fuel, materials, and space, yet requires new industrial, economic, and behavioral models to succeed.”

The next time your in a traffic jam take note and see how scientists have figured out why they happen and who’s to actually blame. Find out from this latest infographic on the Science of Traffic Jams by the good people at Car Insurance Guide. They have done a great job of illustrating the problem to get a clear understanding of how traffic flows, Still its frustrating to be stuck in a traffic jam even when you understand what the problems up ahead are. What if you could be given a heads up and avoid it by given a alternate route?

There are a number of noteworthy papers that caught my eye one was from the UX team from General Motors. They shared their valuable lessons about applying contextual research methods in an automotive environment. The paper focused on gaining a deeper understanding of how drivers interact with today’s entertainment, communication, navigation, and information systems in their vehicles.

Here is a direct link to the Research Paper.

http://www.auto-ui.org/10/

So begins my final Degree Project and Thesis (deep breath) and my road to graduation. What I’ll be doing is keeping everyone informed and giving a behind the scene look to my thesis work, I hope to share an authentic view (both triumphs and challenges) of what goes into making the my final masters degree thesis project.

While I started searching for a degree topic last year I first looked at what products and experiences intrigued me to explore and discover design opportunities for. I knew I wanted to work on mobile devices and was fortunate enough to secure an Internship at Nokia last summer working with the N-Series Team on future smartphone applications. This gave me a good base to discover and appreciate what goes into developing the User Experiences of various applications on a mobile device. Now at the same time I was fascinated by how more and more connected features and information technology was going into the driving experience and Infotainment systems in vehicles.
Now the interesting thing that happened next was by luck and chance I had the opportunity to meet some of the designers at Volkswagen and talk about the various issue and design that goes into envisioning new driving experiences both from a product design perspective and an Interaction perspective, So I then when I was offered an internship to work with the Interface Team at Volkswagen Germany, Wow did I ever feel fortunate talk about moons aligning. So now I find myself working on a thesis topic with Nokia and Volkswagen around the issue of Mobile Interaction and connected vehicles and trying to uncover design opportunities to work through in the coming months.

Confessions Of An Interaction Design Grad Student (Me)

I’m intrigued by various Designers both in the mobile UX and Vehicle Design. The work of Rich Dellinger,(now at Apple again) who was the “User Interface Design Architect” at Palm, and did an amazing job at designing the notification system for the Web OS. Also the design architect of Android 3.0 Honeycomb Matias Duarte is someone I think is helping shape the mobile experience. Lastly I’ve enjoyed watching Chris Bangle make his mark in the car industry recently with the work he did at BMW in redefining the BMW experience.

Toward the end of my degree I would like to have a solution that is both authentic and honest and in defining a solution a mobile device can play in and out of a car experience.

Ideally if what I achieve in my final result is both relevant to Nokia and Volkswagen then I feel that I have contributed to helping both companies define a path to make these to products more meaningful for their end users.

Since both Nokia and Volkswagen were generous enough to contribute resources and time
I would like to list and give thanks to the following.

Nokia: Michael Davis-Burchat, Anton Fahlgren
UID: Kent Lindberg, Niklas Andersson.
Volkswagen: Alexander Hahn, Mathias Kuhn, Henning Theile.

See you soon with more post shortly.

George Paravantes
Interaction Design Student MFA IxD Year 2

The mobile phone had moved to become the pinnacle piece of electronic we own today. When we leave the house in the morning we usually make the check “keys” ” Wallet” and “Mobile”, we dare not think of losing this new connectivity freedom we have access to today. The mobile phone is set to eclipse internet access from personal computers in the next few years. More people will have access online from a mobile device that ever before. Now enter into the driving experience and its easy to see the friction these two experiences create with one another. The distractions for the driver have been well documented within the interior of the vehicle.

The Interior space of the vehicle has evolved into a console with both analog and digital controls to manage various aspects of the driving experience. The word infortainment has been used to describe this console area because increasingly the multimedia rich opportunities that have emerged in vehicle interiors has giving rise to visual navigation systems and onboard connectivity, integration attempts like “Terminal Mode” from Nokia are first steps in laying a common architecture to help bridge mobile devices better into vehicle onboard systems.

The opportunities lies in creating a seamless integration of a mobile device with the on board vehicle infotainment system. The attempts thus far have been to find the right balance of managing content from the device to controlling it through on board vehicle systems. Looking forward I believe that interconnectivity between a mobile device and the vehicle coupled with emergence of ubiquitous computing will offer a better understanding of metropolitan traffic flows and give drivers a better understanding of their driving behavior. Another enhancement could be ongoing connections to customers through services offered through a mobile device, tailoring an application to make it easier to understand the intricacies of their vehicle but also to make it easier to book and maintain their vehicle through car dealership relationships.

Moving Forward the challenges are to find the right feature sets to incorporate into the vehicle from the mobile device and to keep the experience from driving as the main task to be mindful when designing user interfaces for next generation vehicles. Further obstacles are the difference in pace of change a mobile device goes thought Vs the Interior Interface of a vehicle.

In the next coming weeks I will submit my thesis design proposal and a more concrete direction I plan to take.

first concepts

first prototype

Final Design