Ford Brings You the Future of Dashboards Gauges in Cars by Mark
January 13, 2009 in Sparks with 9 Comments
We love dashboards. Heck, we love 'em so much, we created our own to monitor all our online affairs here at ZURB.com. Dashboards provide huge value to businesses and users alike, encouraging activity, serving as a jumping off point with primary calls to action, and getting users excited about the service. They're pretty slick.
One of our favorite ways to use a dashboard here at ZURB is to encourage users to be more active through visually informative designs, a technique really taking hold on the Web. Getting people to do more isn't as hard as it might seem. Give your users the tools they need and a little boost of confidence, and things will magically start to happen.
Using better dashboards on the Web is so effective that it has even spilled over into automotive design. People want visually engaging, game-like views on the data in their lives. Ford and Smart Design have acknowledged that fact and have begun prototyping a brand new car dashboard. The trick, they said, was not making the infographics too complex and keeping the dashboard from distracting drivers.
Information Aesthetics talked about this prototype for a in-car dashboard in a Ford Fusion.
The initial design is quite promising compared to your typical set of dashboard gauges in a car.
Your typical dashboard. Image credit FamilyCar
This early progress into more effective and usable interior design for cars is quite interesting. Just think how mundane and ineffective information is shown to you in your car. Don't you ever wish it was more obvious that your car was overheating, that you needed gas, or that your battery was nearly depleted? Improving on existing dashboards in cars make sense for a number of reasons:
- By essentially making a game out of fuel consumption, they increase the likeness factor of their products, while encouraging drivers to be a little nicer on the environment.
- Having a visually engaging dashboard means people are happy to look at it and are much more likely to engage.
- With a dynamic visual approach—a dashboard that changes visually depending on certain conditions—it also makes for a more usable piece of technology.
Visual feedback through a dashboard is something I've long been wanting in my own car. With all those typical dials and gauges, nothing stands out except for the occasional blinker or check engine light (mostly due to the sound they make). Car makers can improve upon typical car experiences with this kind of improved dashboard.
I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of these kinds of interactions making it into cars and other consumer products. Improved reactions, easier to understand data visualization, and richer and more fun experiences are taking hold in more and more places. That's what I call progress!
9 Comments
Jonathan (ZURB) says:
A good start, especially from an industry that doesn't exactly have a spotless record in terms of innovations...
I like that prototype, especially the more visual indicator for fuel level (very organic, if I say so myself). I wonder if they're not consuming too much space with the large center speedometer. Speed is important, probably the most important for an average driver, but they've relegated some more interesting data (battery charge, MPG, etc) to very secondary status.
Still, a great start in an area that needs some serious innovation. Now they just need to iterate a little.
Tor Løvskogen Bollingmo says:
I don't know. If it works, don't fix it – and what's with the leaves on the right? I think it's too cluttered.
Mark says:
@Tor: If we stick with that attitude for too long, we'll never get anywhere! Innovation is the reason we have laptops instead of typewriters, the reason we have airplanes instead of exploring zeppelins. If it ain't broke, chances are no one has found a better way of doing it.
As to why this might work better, let's revisit a moment I had with my car last month. On my birthday last December, my car overheated. I didn't know it, but it had been doing it for awhile. I saw no steam and smelling nothing until it was too late. Once I was parked and the car off, I saw the steam and smelling something burning. I checked my temperature gauge again, and sure enough, it was more than half way up.
Had a better designed gauge been there, I probably would have known that my temperature was going from something like green for good to yellow for heating up to red for overheating. I would have seen the colors changed and reacted to it, possibly turning off the car before any damage occurred.
This kind of visual engagement will be key in the coming years. It grabs people's attention, is information dense, and fun to use.
Tor Løvskogen Bollingmo says:
That's true. Maybe the poor design ticked me off ;-)
Mark says:
@Tor: Hah! That may be true. The execution may seem a little off, but that core idea of visualizing information in a more compelling and easy to understand way is what I look forward to in the future.
Dave says:
I agree that car dashboards should be more useful and better designed, but the execution on this Ford dash is just way over the top. I think Edmund's actually put it really well in their recent review of the Fusion Hybrid:
"... the reconfigurable information screens on either side of the speedometer — called SmartGauge with EcoGuide by Ford — can be distracting. There's a wealth of information (certainly in the most detailed of the four modes called Empower), and the graphics are pleasant and modern, but it takes some discipline to avoid becoming fixated on the pretty lights. "
How about a heads-up display on the windshield that shows you only the most critical information, instead of a bright screen behind the steering wheel which is blasting everything all at once? Vehicle displays don't need to be stimulating or exciting, they should be efficient, easy to scan, and succinct. I think these designers could learn a lot from race car and fighter jet cockpits, two environments where keeping track of the machine's system is, quite literally, mission critical.
Mark says:
@Dave: That's actually a great idea—take inspiration from several other instances of information displays in different vehicles (air, land, water, etc). Admittedly, I'd take a more minimal approach to the dashboard, but this is a good first step towards something not only more engaging, but more useful to drivers.
No need for stimulation, just the facts. What's the temperature of my engine? How much gasoline do I have left? What's my speed? These are pieces of information I need to know as a driver. Why would I need anything else?
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