LUCID IN-VEHICLE EXPERIENCE
User Experience Designer - Lucid Motors 2015 - 2017
The Lucid Air's infotainment system is the Driver's primary gateway to controlling and experiencing all non-driving related features.
Challenge
An advanced vehicle such as the Lucid Air features a significant number of features and must compete with expectations set by consumer electronic devices. Furthermore, the user's primary task is driving, meaning that interactions must be clear, simple and not require too much eyes-off-road time.
Console Display
The lower console display is intended to be a touch-driven interaction model with content focusing on less frequently used, deeper functionality.
Interaction Model
Tab SWITCHER
While developing the information architecture, I needed to decide on a structure for switching between activities. With this system, the scope of possible activities was mostly limited to a few core domains (navigation, media, communications, and vehicle controls) and the relevance of those domains was somewhat universal between users. I considered several solutions, but ultimately decided on tabs as they provided fixed, instant access to any activity with a single tap.
Exploration of alternatives
Tabs provide a small number of fixed access points that are accessible from anywhere in the system. This discoverability and quick access was well-suited for the system.
App Launchers are great for modularity and customizability, especially when there's a wide range of the number of possible activities. However, the primary means of switching activities always involves two steps: going to the app launcher, and then selecting the target activity.
Cards strike a nice balance between App Launchers and Tabs by providing access to the most frequently used features all from one dashboard. However, this interaction model is precisely the intention of the upper companion screen, so re-using this would create unwanted redundancy and possibly confuse the purpose between the two screens.
Usability Testing
I designed an experiment to test the usability of the overarching interaction model. The test included five tasks that are essential to the system and the series of tasks were repeated three times in order to gauge initial discoverability as well as learnability. I collected task times, self-reported ease-of-use ratings, qualitative feedback and ended with a System Usability Scale (SUS) survey. I also checked for coherence by asking participants to explain the feature after completing the task.
Usability Discovery
Problem: When asked to begin navigation to the nearest Starbucks, most participants struggled to recognize the Map icon.
Recommended Solution: Add text labels in addition to tab icons.