Designing Toward Minimalism in Vehicle HMI

TL;DR

This paper advocates for minimalist design in vehicle HMI, demonstrating that essential information like vehicle speed can often be omitted without compromising safety or usability, based on human estimation capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic approach of questioning the necessity of displayed information, supported by a case study on vehicle speed and extensive online validation.

Findings

Most drivers ask for vehicle speed information (87.6%).

Humans can accurately estimate vehicle speed, especially at lower speeds.

Questioning assumptions can lead to simpler, effective HMI designs.

Abstract

We propose that safe, beautiful, fulfilling vehicle HMI design must start from a rigorous consideration of minimalist design. Modern vehicles are changing from mechanical machines to mobile computing devices, similar to the change from landline phones to smartphones. We propose the approach of "designing toward minimalism", where we ask "why?" rather than "why not?" in choosing what information to display to the driver. We demonstrate this approach on an HMI case study of displaying vehicle speed. We first show that vehicle speed is what 87.6% of people ask for. We then show, through an online study with 1,038 subjects and 22,950 videos, that humans can estimate ego-vehicle speed very well, especially at lower speeds. Thus, despite believing that we need this information, we may not. In this way, we demonstrate a systematic approach of questioning the fundamental assumptions of what information is essential for vehicle HMI.