Having researched into the smart car brand, their target audience, and their existing dashboard/main console designs, I created a wireframe of my initial ideas of how my design of the main console should look. The initial idea and aim for the design is for it have a very stripped back and simple user interface. This is because nowadays as technology is progressing, the amount of things the car can do and features that can be controlled are ever increasing, and so the user interface and experience of controlling them is becoming more complex. This is not only distracting and therefore dangerous for the driver, but it is also an inconvenience, especially for the main target audience of smart cars being urban city drivers and business people, who want to get to places quickly and get things done quickly. For this reason, the design of my interface hopes to provide the driver with the ability to get to the feature they want in as little steps as possible, as well as to make their driving experience with as little distractions coming from the main console as possible.
The initial ideas as shown in the wireframe start with a home screen that is split into 4 categories: Music, GPS, Phone and Settings. The Music category would hold Radio, Spotify, Phone music, and the music settings. The GPS category would hold only the GPS. The Phone category would hold all the contacts of the drivers mobile phone. And the Settings category would hold all information about the vehicle such as service warnings, as well as other settings that have not yet been categorised. By having four main categories, and within some another set of 4 categories, I hope to simplify the stream of information and function. By using common knowledge and associations, the driver should be able to realise which categories hold what function they wish to get to. For example, it is quite obvious that if you're looking for radio, it will be within the Music category. To simplify and make this even clearer, I will add succinct one word labels to each category and sub-category, as well as icons/symbols that would allow the driver to distinguish between the different categories even more.
Due to the nature of cars and their design, having everything controlled by touchscreen alone would be quite alien to drivers, as well as distracting. To use the touchscreen and hit the exact right spot to access a function the driver is after, would require to look away from the road. Also, it would not be just a glance, as the driver would have to look away from the road, at the touchscreen and take their time to process the information on the screen, hit the right button, and possibly continue to hit more buttons until they finally reach what they are looking for. This is obviously dangerous, and although there are times when the driver has a few moments where they can allow themselves such a distraction, eg. at a red light, most of the time this could not only be dangerous but also deadly. To counter such problems, a lot of cars utilise analogue buttons and dials. This allows the driver to learn the placement of the controls such as the volume dial, and be able to reach and control it without necessarily having to take their eyes of the road. This touch-and-feel method is something I have considered within my own design of the main console. To not counter my aim of the design being simple and minimal, I have created only 3 analogue functions. These are: the volume dial, the home button and the selection dial. The volume dial is self-explanatory, the accessible and familiar dial used to increase and decrease sound volume. The home button is also quite simple to understand, it could be used at any time throughout the navigation of the console system to take the user back to the main screen. And lastly, the selection dial, which can be used to easily and quickly make selections within certain parts of the console system, such as: song selection, radio station selection, playlist selection, phone contact selection and etc.
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