

A new vehicle interface - fredsters_s
http://www.minimallyminimal.com/journal/2012/7/22/toyota-doko.html

======
rdl
This appears to be a vehicle interface designed by someone who doesn't
actually drive much.

When driving, you often care about acceleration as much as speed. Digital
displays are horrible for indicating first and second derivatives; analog
dials are great for first and adequate for second.

The best UI on a car I've seen (as far as actually driving it) is the Audi --
a Driver Information Display directly in line with the driver (showing next
turn), and a center area. There's a reason for going for all-red indicators --
night vision. In rural areas, you often dial down the brightness of all
controls to preserve night vision in case an animal or debris is in the road.
If you're on I-5 driving from Seattle to SF, there aren't a whole lot of
turns, so your nav system is really secondary (if on at all), and there's no
reason for it to be in your line of sight.

For great designed interiors for drivers, I'd look to Audi, Porsche, and go
from there.

When driving, I'd consider audio nav information to be primary, followed by
simple next turn information, followed by a (north-centric, vs. vehicle
bearing) map. 95% of the time the only nav info I need is "left turn in 200
meters, 100 meters, 50 meters, now", since I'm focused on other cars rather
than my display. It's only with complex intersections (roundabouts, 5-6 way
intersections where grids overlap, etc.) that I need to see the display.

Audio is inherently more minimal than visual information, so a car really
needs to get it right. Simple things like the order of words in notifications,
how frequently they happen, tones vs. words, etc. make a huge difference, and
require design vs. advanced graphics to get right.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> followed by a (north-centric, vs. vehicle bearing) map.

Isn't north-centric map confusing for you in such situations? I know it is for
me. Vehicle bearing maps take away one quite expensive mental step of
translating and rotating your world to fit the map (or vice versa) in your
imagination. I personally always prefer maps oriented in the direction where
I'm heading, to the point that I always rotate paper maps in my hand so that
it is constantly aligned with the direction I'm looking at. I wonder if anyone
else does the same?

~~~
freehunter
I sit there rotating my phone sometimes to point in the direction I am facing.
Last thing I need to worry about while lost is "is that turn really a right
turn like it shows, or left because I'm headed south?"

~~~
rdl
It might be easier to know which direction your turn is, but using bearing vs.
north=up maps makes it a lot harder to learn where things are around you in
general. I keep my "next turn" vehicle-relative, but the map display itself
north=up, which seems to be the best of both worlds.

~~~
FireBeyond
I liked the existing SatNav in my Prius for this. I could split the display,
the left hand side showing the 3D turn-by-turn navigation view, and the right
showing a top down, north-oriented view. On longer trips, I'd also zoom the
right map all the way out to show start and end, so I could visualize the
entire trip.

------
drusenko
If you want to see a truly excellently designed car display & navigation
system, check out the new BMW 3-series (F30).

They sprung for a non-standard display size that is super-wide, which means
you can show two things at once. I have it configured to always show
navigation directions on the right 1/3, and switch the left 2/3 between map or
music, or whatever.

They also have a heads-up display which is awesome. It uses computer vision to
detect road signs and show me the most up to date speed limit, shows me my
speed right next to that, and the next turn coming up. When I switch through
my iPhone playlist, it replaces the turn directions with the playlist, same
when someone calls in. It's completely non-distracting and right in my field
of vision while I'm driving, looks like it's just "floating" in front of the
car.

Then they have the iDrive rocker, which moves left/right/up/down plus spins to
select more complicated things, like moving through a playlist or typing
directions into the GPS. It means that I keep a very natural driving position
even if I'm controlling something in the car, with one hand on the wheel and
my right hand by my side.

~~~
veyron
That rocker pisses the hell out of me.

In order to do even a mundane task like entering an address, you have to sit
there and fiddle until you select the right letters. Even though it has GPS
features built-in, I still use a separate unit because it's significantly
easier to manipulate while driving.

~~~
joshu
The UI on these is seriously awful. It is unreal. Spinning a knob to type
something in? Uncivilized.

I have a BRZ now and you can type on the screen as fast as you like. It is
unreal.

(also, someday I am going to go bonkers from looking up stuff on one computer
(phone) and typing it into another (car).)

------
tmrggns
I'm reminded of the time I heard the car talk guys bemoaning the growing
electronics in car displays. They seemed to think that physical switches and
dials were easy to work even by someone not looking at them, as opposed to
touch screens and displays.

~~~
brc
Find a volume or hvac knob in the dark is much easier than looking down at a
flat screen to see which icon you're at.

Try and dial a phone number on an iphone without looking at it. It can't be
done. But with an old-style push button phone, you can actually do this. Not
that you would want to, but it's to point out the difference between having a
dedicated interface vs touchscreens.

~~~
noblethrasher
When was the last time the people really used their phone to dial a phone
number? Trading a touch screen for tactile controls was probably a loss only
for people that used speed dial or memorized the navigation of their contact
list (I was one of those people). On the other hand, voice interfaces like
Siri seem like a net win.

~~~
veyron
I was almost mugged once. A tactile phone saved me.

My dad and I were a bit cavalier when working an ATM outside a bank of america
(it was outside, not within a security door). Normally we would count money at
the ATM itself but this particular one didn't have good sides, so anyone could
see that we withdrew 500 dollars. Someone followed us, stepped into the car
and drew a knife, and told us to drive.

He saw my dad's blackberry in the car and took it (to stop us from calling).
Thanks to hard buttons (years before the first iphone, I had what you would
call a "feature phone"), I was able to quietly text my mom (phone in my
pocket) to call the cops. Fellow made the mistake of telling us where to drive
before we got there, and fortunately the cops were aware of the situation, so
the cops were able to apprehend the guy where we let him off.

Despite having used the iphone for many years, I still don't know a consistent
sequence of actions to get me to the messaging screen, select my mom, and send
a specific message without looking at the phone

------
cubicle67
Normally I enjoy this sort of thing, but this I'm not taking to. As commented
by others, it looks like it was designed by someone who drives very little

First up, the speedo is not only about the number, but also the position of
the needle. I don't need to know if I'm doing 110 or 111, but the position of
the needle will tell me at a very quick glance if I'm venturing towards 120 or
slowing to 90

Second - I thought we'd decided adjusting volume by anything other than a
physical turning dial was a poor way to do it about 10 years ago.

Then there's other odd things like 83% oil - what sort of use is a figure like
that? Is that good or bad? Oil _pressure_ is what I need to know, and even
then a simple binary ok/not ok is sufficient

Possibly the main problem is that there's not really much wrong with displays
as they are. I can see my speed and rate of acceleration, rpm, warning lights
etc at a glance. I can dim them to my liking. And, importantly, anyone else
driving one of my vehicles can very quickly acclimatise themselves and feel
confident driving it. With the way things are currently, there's really only
two things I need to figure out when I hop into a car i haven't driven before
- which side of the steering column the indicators are on, and where the
headlight switch is

~~~
exogen
To your two points: you'll see that there is a blue (sometimes yellow?) ring
around the number that presumably serves the same purpose as the speedometer
needle – position & movement at a glance. And the volume is controlled by a
physical turning dial (in the shot with the "hard buttons" label).

~~~
cubicle67
Yes, you might be right about the volume. I was looking at the buttons here
[1] but the volume one looked more like a round push button than a dial. I
guess it could be a dial

As to the ring around the number, well I'm more confused going back and
looking at it again. Sometimes, like [2] it's a single colour, and others,
like [3] it's divided into multiple segments. 12/14mph is slow, so I'd expect
to see the ring extend not as far as it does. I'd expect it to extend that far
around for speeds like 70mph

Another thought - the little mpg/regen graph is prominent but largely useless.
However, if speed and acceleration were added it could be a very useful tool
in working out which driving conditions give best economy

[1] [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post-
images/doko/d13...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post-
images/doko/d13.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1342992715606)

[2] [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post-
images/doko/f07...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post-
images/doko/f07.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1342999131266)

[3] [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post-
images/doko/d10...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/storage/post-
images/doko/d10.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1342992664587)

~~~
vacri
I also had problems with the speedo ring. The number is more informative, but
analogue gauges are faster to read and interpret, which is important when
driving. I'd prefer a design which emphasised the gauge and deemphasised the
number. I'm also not a big fan of putting primary driving information at a
sideways angle from the driver.

Interesting point from ye olde days when they had banks of gauges, such as you
might find measuring pressure in a power plant: the gauges were generally
calibrated such that the 'normal' value had the needle pointing straight up.
That way you can have an entire bank of gauges monitored with little more than
a glance - a needle out of alignment is quickly obvious. By comparison, if
they were number readouts, you'd need to individually focus on each one.

------
atarian
Personally I find it over-designed.

Why is there a graph plotting MPG and Regen (what is regen btw)? Why is there
only one gear state (I use the dash to see where to shift gears)? Why do I
need a wifi icon to tell me whether I have wifi or not?

~~~
viraptor
Why is mpg plotted? Prius is quite popular with people who try to get the max
range / min consumption. Previous generations had a separate view mode for
that graph. If you're driving forwards you can be only in 2 modes B/D.
Otherwise it's neutral or reverse. There's nothing more to show basically.

Regen shows how much energy you got back by slowing down our breaking.

------
johngalt
Better come with a good dimmer switch or an off button. I find bright displays
extremely irritating specifically when they are in my visual field. I've
rented cars where I had to put my coat over the dash. You get the most
information by looking out the _wind_ screen. Navigation is best done by
audio.

------
shortlived
I find it very scarey that I have to wait for a software update to be applied
before I can drive the car.. I hope there is an override mechanism to allow
the car to start anyways in the event that software update fails.

~~~
bonzoesc
The software updates would be for the infotainment (hate that word) or
navigation system, not the control systems that actually run the
transportation part of the car.

~~~
ken
The actual wording on the screenshot says "New update available. Update now?
It takes 10 mins and you won't be able to drive during the update."

~~~
count
ECU updates that are normally done by your dealer could in theory be done OTA
like that. So, 10 minutes of 'down time' instead of a trip to the dealer and
an hour+ of down time.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Seems like something that you'd want triggered while you plug in/refuel; when
your car obviously isn't going anywhere for a few minutes. And using tricks
like Chrome OS has (a/b partitions for current/update) could shove the actual
downtime to not much longer than a reboot takes (hopefully seconds)

------
micheljansen
Although it looks nice, it would be pretty dangerous to actually use this
while driving. I've been researching peripheral touch screens for the past
year and making them easy to use without looking is _really_ hard.

The effects of looking away from the road are pretty well known and they are
bad. In this study [1] for example, noticeable differences in concentration
and lane position/drift were seen when participants were just quickly glancing
at the screen of a GPS. Now imagine you are not just looking at that screen,
but trying to touch it in the right place (accidentally hitting the wrong
button, getting frustrated etc.). These problems really have to be solved
before replacing commonly used functions in cars with touch screens and this
design does not adequately address them.

[1] <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1620534>

~~~
mnicole
Additionally, I think it is incredibly telling that we've been banning
texting-while-driving and yet expect stationery, ~1ft away UI to be the
solution. With texting, you still don't have the benefit of tactile feedback
but you at least have the ability to try to steady the phone on your steering
wheel to give you the best road:phone visual you could possibly get, it's
closer to your face and you probably understand the UI better. All the same,
it's been the cause of innumerable accidents. Given that you're likely using a
GPS unit because you don't understand the area as is, these controls need to
be on the steering wheel or accessed through voice controls. Even someone who
understands their GPS still has to deal with the bumps and swerves of the
road.

~~~
micheljansen
Absolutely. I wouldn't call texting on a phone (even an old-fashioned one with
physical buttons) safer than operating a GPS though. The same bumps and
swerves of the road you point out can cause the phone to slip from your hands,
fall on the floor and cause an accident, to just name an example.

------
joezydeco
UI: nice. Ergonomics: not so nice.

Just from my eyballing of the layout, that touchscreen on the right side of
the panel will be out of reach for a significant number of drivers.

------
nchlswu
I'm generally a fan of Andrew's work, but this one misses the mark.

I don't really have a problem with the aesthetics or the graphic design - he
consistently shows creativity and design chops. In fact, a lot of his points
are pretty good. However, the final product is a bit shallow and while pretty,
has some half baked ideas that don't contribute to an overall great product
design that's not usable. It solves some problems, but ultimately doesn't
solve some of the more important problems with driving nav these days (and
perhaps exacerbates them)

I think this demonsttrates why areas like human factors exist and are needed
in the design process. We shouldn't neuter designers at the beginning, but
refine and distill designs like these into something even better

------
petitmiam
I do like that it tries to address the problem of phones advancing during the
lifespan of the car. The hardware would have to be generic enough though, that
it can be useful and adaptable in the long term.

I'm not sure if it's feasible though. to use Android as an example, not every
Android ever released can run jellybean. It still requires newer hardware at
some point.

~~~
rogerbinns
This is why I will ensure my next car does _not_ have GPS and similar stuff in
it. It will be obsolete long before the (at least) 10 year lifespan of the
car. I've heard all sorts of prices quoted for annual map updates of in car
GPS data, but the lowest number I ever heard was $200. That would easily buy
you a brand new GPS (and with better functionality/usability). Or the money
would be better put towards connectivity and mobile devices.

~~~
woobar
I had a car with built-in navigation before. For the very same reasons you've
mentioned I got a new car without one. I regret it a lot!

Phone or portable navigation is such a pain to use. Charging cables, mounts,
don't forget to hide it when parked in a not-so-nice-area, don't forget to put
it back.

I miss always present, always charged and nicely integrated with the car audio
built-in nav system.

~~~
rogerbinns
I buy a Garmin every few years at Costco, where price ranges from $150 to
$350. It comes with a mount etc and I never hide it. I don't think it has much
worth to thieves since they are obsolete not too much later. I also don't
frequent dodgy areas (to my knowledge). I do use the PIN protection so even if
someone stole it the device wouldn't be useful as is, and they wouldn't be
able to get my home address out of it.

Every time I ride with someone who has in car GPS they moan about the user
interface and often don't use it anyway due to stale map and POI data.

------
bendauphinee
I dislike the reduction of controls. One of the things that has always
bothered me about driving with my phone as a media player is that I can't
control it easily by touch. I want buttons and knobs that I can use by touch
for all car functions.

------
dlsym
From what I can see in these pictures, this is a full featured computer with
an OS and apps. It has access to the internet and to the internal bus (Oil,
Speed and whatnot).

I have a _very_ bad feeling about that.

~~~
tsahyt
It might be an enormous security issue. Since everything is computer-
controlled in a car these days, security is extremely important. Imagine
somebody messing with the system, having access to the internal bus and
disabling the (electric) brakes.

------
noonespecial
Hmm. I don't like it. I wouldn't want it in my car. But I'm really thrilled
that someone is starting to think about the UI in cars in a very serious way
because most of the UI's in todays cars are horrible.

------
lloeki
For the curious, "doko" means "where" in Japanese.

~~~
mnicole
With the typography weighted the way it is, I read "Dodo" before I read
"Doko".

------
mnicole
As someone who is 5'2 and prefers driving with the steering wheel a decent
height above my legs, I wonder if I'd even be able to see the speedometer
behind the steering wheel? Relying on color as an indicator is also a big
problem.

------
holyjaw
I really like this idea, though I wonder what the Omni Group thinks of the
logo...

------
philip1209
Article aside, the name of the blog seems humorously redundant.

------
Rhymenocerus
I like the 'blurred by 20px' image. It's like saying 'this is how your
speedometer will look while you're drunk'.

------
bawllz
this made me think of a business model for a piece of software. Charge per
feature? I wonder if this could be successful. For example, you offer some
software with base features, and have the users pay to add specific features.

~~~
DHowett
Like the Home/Professional/Ultimate licensing tiers of old, each presenting
slightly more features than the last? Or more like in-app purchases on mobile
phones, providing additional features for increments of cash, proverbially
nickel-and-diming the user into oblivion?

Both of these things have been done, and of course, their worth is in the eyes
of those making the money.

~~~
bawllz
not exactly. More like you offer a base line service (for example sake lets
say for free), then you offer individual feature add-ons at a cost. That way,
rather then paying x$ for upgrading say, professional to ultimate and getting
a bunch of features you don't need, and the single one that you do, you buy
exactly what you want, and no more. Also could provide a way of priming your
users to submit features that they would actually want to pay for.

------
cperkins
Is it DODO or DOKO?

~~~
savories
They're not sure either.

This is one of those projects that is cool to look at, but is too focused on
being "cool" rather than functional. It seems as though more effort was put
into type and layout than improving the actual driving experience.

------
ff0066mote
"Sorry officer, my speedometer was blurry."

------
shpoonj
When I read the title, I really got my hopes up that this was about replacing
the steering wheel, pedals, shifter, etc.

I was sorely disappointed... this is just another rehash.

------
drivebyacct2
"You won't be able to drive during the update". I love technology and have
from the earliest of ages, but that's a little bit eery.

