Should driving interactions always be this old?

The following is the text:

I studied in Tsinghua University is a very detailed professional-vehicle design, which is also a great emphasis on the practice of the professional. Sophomore basically completed all the credits, has been working in the automotive industry, before leaving business in the United States, a number of automotive companies work, most of the theme is design and interaction. During this period, I strongly felt that the car industry and driving behavior is very special, it is a very special scene, is a typical manipulative interactive scene.

This is an interactive way of holding hands. In the short term, automatic driving is difficult to popularize, and we need both hands to control the steering wheel. At the same time, the steering wheel is a very natural way of interaction, so the pilot's hands are still in a state of interactive silence. The driver's eyes are also in the occupied state, need to always pay attention to the road, the driving environment to scan, the eyes in the process has been occupied. Therefore, other forms of interaction during driving will be in this state of auxiliary interaction for a long time.

I did an analysis of several interactive forms:

1, Touch screen interaction

The touch screen interaction is divided into two parts, finger touch and eye view. The advantage is to be able to form a variety of uses and a variety of applications, now touch-screen phone is a good example. This interactive approach has almost created a new era.

But the interaction is big, which causes the driver to touch the screen when the basic can not do other than listen. Whether in the middle of the touch screen or mobile phone, in the driving is unsafe operation. Imagine how annoying it would be to look at a message while you were in a traffic jam and then follow the car in front of you.

2. Gesture interaction

A short time single hand out of the steering wheel is permissible in driving, so gesture control may be a new starting point for interaction. But it's worth noting that in the interactive gesture control is a high input value of the operation, if long-term gesture control (such as continuous response to SMS, switch songs), the driver is easily distracted, put too much energy, easy driving fatigue, imagine driving your right hand often need to rest on the shift handle.

Gesture control is an interactive experience that looks cool, but actually sucks. One example I like to use is a pen that can be used in space. Therefore, the market of hand-gesture interactive products are not very successful, such as Leap Motion.

3. Voice interaction

Voice interaction can be said to be a good way to interact in the driving process, but the car noise and environmental noise impact is very large. We have repeatedly tested the use of Google Now and Siri in the car, and in the course of driving, Google Now and Siri are used in 80% of the cases, and 20% will fail. So the noise reduction of the equipment is very important.

In software, voice control needs to consider different languages and dialects of different places, this aspect of the company has long time research and better solutions.

It is said that the current voice software has the Chongqing dialect version of the. =

4, button, knob interaction

This can be said to be the most widely used interactive mode in automobiles. He is characterized by simple operation and single control. So there are a lot of buttons on the car with buttons. The advantage is that the reliability is strong, the disadvantage is that control is single unchanged. Needless to say, the contrast between the BlackBerry and the iphone is a good example.

So the question, how can we do simple operation + operation accuracy + control diversity? Of the four interactions mentioned above, only the touchscreen meets this condition. But it can also cause drivers to be distracted. How do you get the driver to interact without distracting you? This is why the recent HUD project has been relatively hot because the driver doesn't have to switch from the road to see the information. If you can do some innovation on the control, it is equivalent to adding a touch screen separation, to achieve simple operation + operation accuracy + control of multiple + safe driving.

Perhaps from the primary school art reason, in the product design solves the problem, I tend to use the existing material combination to solve the problem. I particularly like the products without printing, there are many design works are very clever, with very simple materials clever combination of methods to solve the problem. For example, add a knob on the suitcase, let the wheel stuck, so that the subway will not slide, such as wood racks, simple and easy to transport.

In the process of making products, technology is just a tool to solve problems, many times the simple method can better solve the problem than the High-tech. It is the designer's concern that the user needs and the cost is allowed to solve the problem. A good example is the space pen and pencil. When the United States space Station docked with the Russian space station, American astronauts showed Russian astronauts the latest development of pens they could use in space. Then the Russians tell Americans they use pencils to take notes. The steering wheel of a car may be the pencil in space.