Cluster Fuck

In Car

Over the last year we’ve seen a lot of new thought around in-car HMI (especially in the centre console), with safety rightly at the forefront. The instrument cluster however has remained fundamentally unchanged since instruments first appeared in the car. Originally, the speedo worked via a cable connected to the engine pulling at the needle as the car accelerated.

Is a needle pointing at a number the best way of communicating driving speed? Or is it simply a legacy of an out of date mechanical implementation. We took the iconic speedo and reinvented it.

In the course of our research at ustwo Auto, we’ve looked into how we can – and why we should – enrich this space. In our thought piece and prototype, we present the results of this, not as a complete solution, but as a viewpoint and approach to be tested, debated and improved with your feedback.

This project was researched, conceived, designed and the thought piece written by myself along with my ustwo Auto team mate Harsha Vardhan.

Play with the prototype.

Awards / Press

FastCompany: Innovation by Design Awards 2015 Finalist (Data Visualisation category)
FastCompany: Innovation by Design Awards 2015 Finalist (Experimental category)
Wired: Brilliant Car UIs From Monument Valley’s Design Geniuses
Road & Track: The clean, intuitive future of your car’s speedometer
Engadget: The creators of ‘Monument Valley’ are redesigning your car dash
Popular Mechanics: Here’s how the instrument cluster should look
The Verge: The design studio behind Monument Valley is rethinking in-car displays
Business Insider: The geniuses behind last year’s most beautiful mobile game are now designing futuristic car dashboards

We chose Citroën’s new Cactus family vehicle to demonstrate our concept because we felt their target audience of families rather than petrol heads would be accepting to our controversial cluster re-imagination and we felt the bold spirit of the car matched the spirit of our concept.

We married the striking colours, high contrast and unique curves and straights of the exterior with the more refined interior, bleeding the mottled leather of the dash into the cluster screen, unifying the exterior, interior and digital design into one coherent product experience.

The width of the screen represents the local driving limit. Here the driver is cruising slowly.

Here, the driver has put his foot down but only going at over half the speed limit.

The screen has filled and turned to red, the driver is speeding.

An example of how tell tales appear. Warnings appear in Kiki shapes (sharp) while secondary information is presented in Bouba shapes (round).

When the car is parked, what use is a speedo? Our concept has a contextually empathetic adaptive UI, showing range available with the fuel level – rather than a speedo, when in park.

How our concept works during light conditions. A night mode will need to be less bright.

IS A NEEDLE POINTING AT A NUMBER THE BEST WAY OF COMMUNICATING DRIVING SPEED? READ MY BLOG POST.

The concept can work with any vehicle, our most recent demonstration is in the Citroën Cactus.

How the same concept can work within the form factor and brand of the Ferrari California.

How the same concept can work within the form factor and brand of the Mercedes S-Class.

In our early iterations, we decided to keep the concept unbranded as to not bias any UI design and concept tests.

Unbranded version: driving within the speed limit.

Unbranded version: speeding.

Unbranded version: range available. More than enough to get to work (but you might want to fill up before you come home).

Unbranded version: low range available, just 92 miles according to traffic conditions and your driving style.

When conceiving the re-imagined cluster, we considered a plethora of design principles, from accessibility, to animation to driver distraction NHTSA and ESOP guidelines.

Testing an early iteration in context.

PLAY WITH THE PROTOTYPE

Take a look at our concept video.