Research - Smart Automobile Brand, Dashboard Designs and Target Audience

Smart Brand

Brand Slogan: "Urban Cars for City Driving"
"Smart is a cleaner, greener, more nimble company car."
"The new smart is packed with innovative solutions for infotainment, navigation and connectivity for stress-free city driving."
"So there’s even more reason to smile in your smart – less strain on the environment and less strain on your wallet thanks to lower petrol costs."
"when you’re buzzing around town, the automatic start/stop system automatically shuts the engine down when the vehicle is stationary – another clever feature to maximise mileage."

From the company's website, it is clear that they have a certain brand image and key features that they work towards. Their slogan "urban cars for city driving" sums up pretty well their aims, as they make small cars that would be ideal for driving and parking in a busy city. They have a section within their website dedicated to "Fleet and Business" showing that they take into focus the business person that would most likely be appealed by the small size and city accessibility that the smart car can provide.

Looking at the brand guidelines, I found some colours that I could utilise within my design at a later stage. Using the colours of the brand could not only help promote the brand and showcase that he user interface design is unique to them, but it could also be a form of familiarity and comfort for the audience, as they would have come across these colours in previous other smart brand associated products/services.

Target Audience

As discussed previously, it is clear that the smart brand holds a focus towards the business person living in the city. From their website, within their "Fleet and Business" section they promote the features that would appeal to the city business person such as "infotainment, navigation and connectivity", "stress-free city driving", "lower petrol costs", "less strain on the environment" and "maximise(ing) mileage". These are things that would be important for the business person smart car owner, and therefore smart have chosen the right target audience to focus on. For this reason, when designing my console interface for Smart, I will also focus on the target audience of the city living business person, and aim my design to appeal to them.

Current Smart Car Dashboard/Console Designs

The home screen of the interface seems to be a little busy, there are sections here which the driver would not likely need to be told until they wanted to know, for example, the eco score. The visuals of the design do not seem to be as innovative as the smart brand presents itself through the design of their cars, the 3D effect on the buttons is a little dated and visually unappealing, as well as a little illegible. The layout of the information of the screen is what makes the visuals feel busy, there is too large a range of different sized shapes and there doesn't seem to be much cohesion between them.

The GPS seems to be well enough designed to the extent that it will get the driver to where they want to go, however I believe it looks a little complex and confusing. The block of information on the right side looks a little cramped and doesn't allow for the information it is trying to communicate to come through as clearly as it could be. The 3D effect on the buttons is continued onto the GPS, which adds unnecessary flourishing that might only distract the driver. The design of the map itself, however, is quite successful and effective as it is simple and utilises colour to clearly communicate to the driver where they are and where they need to go.

The Bluetooth device management screen is overlapped temporarily by the music volume pop-up. The idea of the music volume pop-up is good as it allows the driver to visually see how high and low the volume can go, however I believe that could be a little distracting as it would encourage the driver to look away from the road as they change volume. The Bluetooth device management screen at the back is also fairly good as the design of it is simple and stripped back, however, I feel as if the harsh orange colours could yet again be distracting for the driver, especially if they were driving at night. The 3D buttons again are displeasing and ineffective visual.

The Incoming Call screen is a little chaotic and busy. There is a lot of information being conveyed at one time. It is a little confusing and unnecessary, as some of these elements are not required. eg. you would not need to be dialling a number to call if you are about to take a call already. Also, the buttons for answering or hanging up are a little small and obscure. The 3D effect on the buttons makes them a little hard to distinguish, and alongside the small size of them, that would be even harder to do at a glance if the user was driving at the time. The colour red for the background much like the orange previously feels a little harsh and more distracting than it needs to be.

Here a much improved home screen design, where there is not as much information being thrown at the driver and the layout much clearer. Again, the 3D effect on the buttons does not seem to any favours as the buttons seem permanently obscured by light, and therefore a little hard to read and distinguish. The different colours for different categories/sections of information, however, is very effective as it would allow the driver to become accustomed with those colours and their functions, making their selection process much faster each time they come to use the system. Such colour categorisation is something that I could also utilise within my interface design.