Good words by Cobie Everdell, the creative director at design firm frog, from his article at TechCrunch:
Car dashboards seem drastically behind the times in terms of UI; they are unintuitive, cluttered with unnecessary information and, worst of all, distracting. […]
Somehow over the last 100 years we have accepted that complex dashboards — highlighting all the features and technologies in a car with individual controls — are essential.
In reality, we as drivers and car owners are living in a world of information overload. […] And yet, all this information is displayed persistently in my dashboard. […]
However, technology adoption in cars today is hitting an inflection point, and the UI model we have grown accustomed to cannot handle it. […]
We seem to be on the cusp of change, especially with Apple’s anticipated entry into the car market. The trend of direct control and complexity cannot continue; the industry needs a new vision for the dashboard. […]
Going forward, the industry should adopt a model of on-demand UI rather than direct control. In this model, information and controls would only be provided when needed.
He goes on to outline principles around concealing, anticipating, and personalizing the information shown. Good read.
