IVI – system

Assignment

For this project, we were given a design assignment by WeAreReasonablePeople (WARP), a digital agency that develops, designs, and builds smart digital products and services. The design challenge they presented to our team was: “How can we design the infotainment system in such a way that physical buttons become unnecessary, and the driver can access all functions in one place, without sacrificing user-friendliness?”

During the first week of the preparation phase, we selected a target audience and conducted research. Our target audience was young families with primaryschool-aged children. The main problem of our target audience was that they were easily distracted by their children. One of the respondents said: “As a driver, it’s difficult because children don’t understand that you need to pay attention to the road, and it’s easy to get distracted, which I find dangerous.” So, we chose to design our IVI system to be calming and non-distracting as a goal.

Results

The IVI system has been designed to be user-friendly for the drivers in our target group. Thanks to the sidebar in the system, drivers can easily switch between different sections while driving. The sidebar also contains two shortcuts for media sound and temperature functions, which allows the driver to perform the same task on any screen without being distracted by traffic. The system provides a non-distracting and calming effect by using the blue color palette. The central issue was that children were causing distraction in traffic. With the children’s mode in the media player, distraction is reduced. In the children’s mode, the driver can play children’s songs so that the children have something to do. The driver can also activate the Kids Cam, which eliminates the need for the driver to turn around to pay attention to the children, thus keeping the driver alert on the road.

My individual task was to design the navigation system. With the navigation, drivers can set an address that leads to the desired destination. The address can be set in different ways. Firstly, you can search for a new address using the search bar located at the top of the navigation home screen. Drivers can type in the correct address and find it. It may be the case that a certain address is used more frequently, such as the address of the homes. Drivers can add that address to the favorites list by clicking the ‘Add’ button. After an address has been chosen, the screen appears where the drivers must choose a route. Thanks to this feature, they can base the route on the behavior of their children. On this route screen, you can see how long a trip takes and how many stops there are to make. If necessary, there is also information on whether there are Constuction zones nearby. Because our system is designed for electric cars, there is also an option to find the nearest charging point by clicking the charging icon. In this way, the driver can, if necessary, adjust the route towards the charging point. Prototype

My roles

This quarter, it was my task to design the navigation component. I worked in three iterations. In each iteration, I visualized the test results in the form of a graph.

Learning experience

I am very satisfied with the fact that our design was well received by the clients. After our presentation, the clients said that they were very impressed. During the making of the prototypes, I learned that each small detail such as color, size, and shape can change a lot in the design. I want to take this insight into the future.