Samsung and HARMAN unveiled a new concept in connected car technology at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018. This first automotive electronics collaboration between the two companies has resulted in the Digital Cockpit platform, which combines 5G technology and an IoT platform to provide an intelligent and seamless connected car experience.
Consumers’ needs have changed greatly when it comes to automotive technology. While both drivers and passengers have always needed ease of use, personalization and safety, more than ever, they need their devices to be able to connect to each other and to offer simpler controls. The Digital Cockpit meets these needs and more by providing infotainment and IoT services across a suite of OLED and QLED screens.
The Digital Cockpit consists of three displays and three knobs that can all be customized according to driver and passenger tastes.
The Cluster Display in front of the driver uses a 12.3-inch OLED and provides driving information such as speed and RPM. Infotainment is handled by a 28-inch QLED Central Information Display (CID) and Passenger Display, using the integrated solutions for multiple displays running on a single chip. Below these displays is the Control Display, a 12.4-inch curved OLED that enables control of other features such as air conditioning.
The Digital Cockpit’s three knobs have a circular display akin to Samsung’s Gear S watch, so users can directly and intuitively use them. The customizable knobs can be set to functions most frequently used by the driver, such as clock, temperature, volume and Bixby.
The Cluster Display (left) for information and the Center Information Display/Passenger Display (right) for infotainment
The Acura Precision Cockpit's touchpad uses absolute position mapping for the first time in the driving environment, combining the flexibility and usability of a touchscreen with the comfort and reduced driver distraction of a remote-based approach. A traditional touchscreen approach is intuitive and direct, but forces a compromised placement of the screen close to the driver and out of the driver's natural line-of-sight. A traditional remote-based interface – common in luxury cars – solves these challenges, but the interaction between the remote and the display is often indirect and clumsy.
With absolute positioning, the interaction with the touchpad aligns precisely with the actions on the main display. Every spot on the touchpad is mapped to a specific function on the main display, just like a touchscreen. Favorites are positioned along the bottom, and scrolling is positioned along the outer edges. A tap on the top left corner of the touchpad engages the content on the top left corner of the center display.
"Absolute positioning transforms the touchpad experience, making it personal, intuitive and particularly well-suited for premium, driver-centric, performance machines," said Dave Marek, Acura's executive creative director. "It's also designed to be quickly and easily adopted, as drivers become acclimated and comfortable in minutes."
It’s an answer that goes against the grain of what many others in the auto industry are doing. While the modern dashboard is usually a finger-enticing plethora of touchscreens, Acura has eschewed such things with the argument that, though perfect for tablets and smartphones, they’re not especially suited – or safe – for cars. After all, since you need to look where you tap, you have to take your eyes off the road.
The automaker’s new alternative is, ironically, something you might have experimented with on your laptop years ago. The Precision Cockpit concept has a touchpad mounted down low in the center console, positioned just right for your fingertips to dangle atop it when you rest your wrist on the leather pad. It’s topped with a couple of shortcut buttons for Home and Back, with a touch-sensitive scroll strip to its right.
Touchpads aren’t new in cars either – Lexus tried, albeit half-heartedly, to replace its little-loved joystick controller with one – but what makes the difference in Acura’s case is how taps are registered. Dubbed “Absolute Positioning” it’s basically a 1:1 mapping of points on the touchpad to points on the wide 12.3-inch display on top of the dashboard. A tap in the top right corner always refers to what’s in the same spot on the display, for instance.
The idea is that, just as you get familiar with the location of physical buttons on a dashboard over time, so you get used to positions on the touchpad and how they relate to what’s on the screen. According to Acura, it was a matter of minutes before its testers got to grips with the system, in fact.
Both touchpad and center display are positioned for anyone in the front to use. For the driver alone, there’s a second 12.3-inch screen for virtual instrumentation. With a human at the wheel, that shows things like a speedometer and the usual dials you’d expect; when the car is driving itself, under conditions like adaptive cruise control or – in the future – entirely autonomously, it changes considerably.
Similar absolute-mapping on laptops has always been less than ergonomically successful, primarily because the resolution of the display and the content on-screen usually demands smaller movements than are practical on a laptop-scale trackpad. In Acura’s case, the chunky icons are far easier to hit. The display itself is split roughly 60/40 into two panels: a primary display for apps, navigation, and such on the left, and a narrower screen dedicated to music, weather, and notifications on the right.
Both touchpad and center display are positioned for anyone in the front to use. For the driver alone, there’s a second 12.3-inch screen for virtual instrumentation. With a human at the wheel, that shows things like a speedometer and the usual dials you’d expect; when the car is driving itself, under conditions like adaptive cruise control or – in the future – entirely autonomously, it changes considerably.
BMW HoloActive Touch looks floating graphic over the console. Touch either of the floating buttons and you control feature functions but also get distinctive touch sensation. It uses three sub-assemblies – projector, a camera and a speaker. The projector sits in a panel on the console and makes the images appear to float in the air.
A camera sensor captures the finger motion (like projected capacitive) and activates the feature / function. The unique feature is haptic feedback.
BMW HoloActive touch sensitive display for showing the driver information about music, navigation and more, which appears to float in air, and which also provides actual felt, tactile feedback in response to interactions. HoloActive Touch incorporates heads-up display features, too, meaning it could span the driver’s field of view and provide a more immersive way to access info about your car and your ride. excerpt from designhmi.com
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This revolutionary technology brings together the BMW Head-Up Display, BMW gesture control, a feature which made its debut in a previous CES and is now available in the new BMW 7 and 5 Series, and direct touchscreen operation into on single interface. So you can simply adjust the audio volume or climate control in the car by waving your hand or snapping your fingers.
This innovative interface between the driver and vehicle acts like a free floating in-car virtual touchscreen which can be operated using finger gestures. BMW HoloActive Touch allows the user to access the wide variety of services provided by BMW Connected.
According to BMW: "For the first time, the functions can be controlled without any physical contact with materials. But the technology still enables the visible and tangible driver-vehicle interaction familiar from conventional touch screens." The display is located towards the right of the steering wheel and the driver can simply use finger gestures to operate it. There is a camera to detect the driver’s hand movements. The moves further help to determine if the fingertip makes contact with the visual control surface. A pulse is then emitted and the relevant function is activated. In this way, the driver does not interact with any physical material and can thus focus on driving.
This technology seems to have been sourced from Ultraphatics.
HoloActive Touch is BMW’s latest step towards holography. BMW introduced AirTouch last year, which allows users to control navigation and entertainment features with movement of hand. excerpt from mobilescout.com
Jonathan Disley, Vice President of Design, Volvo Cars China and Asia Pacific.
It’s always a privilege to be privy to talks by designers expounding on their own creations, as is the case recently when Jonathan Disley (top), Volvo Cars China and Asia Pacific’s Vice President for Design, decided to stop by Kuala Lumpur.
On the evidence of the new XC90 and the soon-to-launch S90/V90, few can deny that Volvo is on to a good thing from a design perspective. If you find the exterior styling of new Volvos invigorating, then the interior makeover has been nothing short of a revolution.
The handful of buttons and a lone rotary knob of the XC90 (top image) against an entire panel of them on a S60.
It was no surprise to learn from Disley that buttons and switches have always been a bane to interior designers; they are a necessity but introduces clutter to the dashboard. Once physical controls are ‘confirmed’ for production, it’s near impossible to alter the aesthetics and functionalities without incurring heavy redevelopment costs. Basically, you’re stuck with them for at least one model cycle that lasts at least five to seven years, if not longer.
Disley revealed that the inspiration behind Volvo’s new Sensus Connect infotainment system came from Apple’s iPad. Not only does touch screen technology solve the age-old issue of clutter, thus freeing the shackles that bound designers from penning a cleaner, more expressive design, but by virtue of being software-based, the system can be updated anytime, just like a tablet.
Are virtual controls ready to replace physical ones entirely? Hmmm…
Some hardware switches have survived the cull of course – ignition, drive mode selection, park brake, demister, hazard, among others, but curiously, Volvo chose to stick with the physical controls for the entertainment system (i.e. volume, play button, etc.) and not the air-conditioning.
Volvo isn’t the first manufacturer to have embraced touch interface in a comprehensive manner and certainly won’t be the last. Make no mistake, to pack that much tech yet have an interface so clean and visually appealing is nothing short of cool. The minimalist approach allows for large swatches of natural materials (wood, aluminium, leather as found in the XC90) to shine through. Personally, I’m sold on the concept, and you’d be too if you ever find yourself sitting in a XC90.
Clean, uncluttered interior architecture allows for materials to shine.
But as Disley proudly quoted Jeremy Clarkson’s verdict on the XC90 cabin as ‘the nicest interior you’ll find anywhere this side of a Rolls-Royce Phantom’, a couple of us local hacks (who aren’t remotely as famous or as wealthy as Mr. Clarkson) can’t help but to query Disley as to why Volvo chose to have physical controls for the audio instead of air-conditioning which we humbly submit as the more critical one to have, particularly when the steering wheel already has dedicated buttons that control the sound system.
Audio controls can be found on the XC90 steering wheel, curiously repeated on the lower dash.
So as more carmakers move to exorcise unsightly buttons and dials from dashboards, I believe the decision as to which physical controls to retain will be harder than ever. Our extremities may have become more dexterous in the age of smartphones and tablets, but adjusting the temperature and fan speed on a touchscreen (such as that of the XC90’s) when driving can be a hit-or-miss exercise. Unless you have fingers shaped like a stylus or have the (mis)fortune of being endowed with dainty digits like Donald Trump, it can even be distracting at times, when it really shouldn’t be. Our reader review of the XC90 also touched upon this point.
Disley justified the inclusion of physical audio controls on the basis of Volvo’s own customer research. I can’t possibly question the Swedish carmaker’s integrity in vehicular safety either; they remain at the forefront and are well on their way to achieving zero fatalities in road accidents involving Volvo vehicles. But it’s interesting to note that other premium manufacturers (case in point being the Germans) have also gone the minimalist route in interior design while retaining hardware controls for key functions such as air conditioning. Maybe that’s why Jeremy Clarkson likes them less than the Volvo.
Often used air-con controls should all be as easy to operate as this one (from a Volkswagen Passat)
The howls of frustration that we hear on many UX projects are often to do with how badly misunderstood the UX role is in business. Here are 5 things that everyone should know about UX work:
1. UX Research is Essential
The first barrier to many a UX project is people in the company who think they already know the customer inside out.
“We’ve done plenty of market research, just tell us what you need to know and we’ll tell you,” comes the offer of many a helpful marketing manager or project manager. In reality, we don’t care about their market research—we need to talk to users to build up a profile in relationship to the use of the product and not how they interact with the company in general. Market research is about broad trends in customers and what they are likely to buy; UX research is about individual behaviours of users when they use a product. These are different things, and without talking to users, we can’t know how they see the product or develop one of those lovely user personas that we need.
2. UX Work Tends to Be Iterative
While it doesn’t look like we’ve done all that much since the last time you popped your head round the door, in truth, we’re 5 versions farther along the lines towards a product our customers will like. To make great products, we make lots of changes and test them. Then we bury the changes that don’t make enough of a difference. We keep doing this until we finally have a product that’s substantially better than either our last one or the competitor’s offerings. It takes time, and it’s not exciting to look at from outside our labs, but it’s also very much necessary.
3. We Can’t Show You a “Process”
We warn against treating UX work as a “one size fits all” process. Sadly, this behaviour can alienate some clients, and in some cases, clients might even demand this from the outset.
“Show us your process and we’ll tell you how it fits in with our product,” they might claim.
You need to step back and explain that each process should be somewhat unique, as each product is somewhat unique and as each user base is also somewhat unique. Your clients don’t want a standard process really; they just think they do and you may have to wean them off the idea.
4. Yes, We Have to Test
If you want products that users love, then we have to test them. Sure, we UX folks are experts in our field, but we’re not your users. Our job is to refine ideas to the point that we can hand them over to your users to tell is if we got it right or not. This may be time consuming, but it’s the only assurance you have that we’re really moving in the right direction too.
5. UX is More than Usability
Usability is important, but the user experience is more than usability. We like how Apple has managed to get usability on the strategic radar, but usability alone is not enough. Usability is the bare minimum requirement of a product that is released; UX includes everything else that makes the difference between “it works” and “it wows!”
