Roughly a half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles produced worldwide in 2017 (47% manufactured by Chinese carmakers) were sold in China. Well, that is an interesting side note, but not the reason that everybody at the office got extremely excited when Denza—a joint venture of the Daimler AG and BYD Auto—approached us in early 2016 with the request to re-design the in-car dual screen experience for the upcoming facelift of their EV series for the Chinese market. What are the odds for a 60+ people design company to work on an automotive HMI (human-machine interface) which will actually go into production? … A brief “automotive moment” later … March 2018, the Denza 500 was finally released in the largest electric vehicle market of the world…
Roughly a half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles produced worldwide in 2017 (47% manufactured by Chinese carmakers) were sold in China. Well, that is an interesting side note, but not the reason that everybody at the office got extremely excited when Denza—a joint venture of the Daimler AG and BYD Auto—approached us in early 2016 with the request to re-design the in-car dual screen experience for the upcoming facelift of their EV series for the Chinese market. What are the odds for a 60+ people design company to work on an automotive HMI (human-machine interface) which will actually go into production? … A brief “automotive moment” later … March 2018, the Denza 500 was finally released in the largest electric vehicle market of the world…
Roughly a half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles produced worldwide in 2017 (47% manufactured by Chinese carmakers) were sold in China. Well, that is an interesting side note, but not the reason that everybody at the office got extremely excited when Denza—a joint venture of the Daimler AG and BYD Auto—approached us in early 2016 with the request to re-design the in-car dual screen experience for the upcoming facelift of their EV series for the Chinese market. What are the odds for a 60+ people design company to work on an automotive HMI (human-machine interface) which will actually go into production? … A brief “automotive moment” later … March 2018, the Denza 500 was finally released in the largest electric vehicle market of the world…
Roughly a half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles produced worldwide in 2017 (47% manufactured by Chinese carmakers) were sold in China. Well, that is an interesting side note, but not the reason that everybody at the office got extremely excited when Denza—a joint venture of the Daimler AG and BYD Auto—approached us in early 2016 with the request to re-design the in-car dual screen experience for the upcoming facelift of their EV series for the Chinese market. What are the odds for a 60+ people design company to work on an automotive HMI (human-machine interface) which will actually go into production? … A brief “automotive moment” later … March 2018, the Denza 500 was finally released in the largest electric vehicle market of the world…
Roughly a half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles produced worldwide in 2017 (47% manufactured by Chinese carmakers) were sold in China. Well, that is an interesting side note, but not the reason that everybody at the office got extremely excited when Denza—a joint venture of the Daimler AG and BYD Auto—approached us in early 2016 with the request to re-design the in-car dual screen experience for the upcoming facelift of their EV series for the Chinese market. What are the odds for a 60+ people design company to work on an automotive HMI (human-machine interface) which will actually go into production? … A brief “automotive moment” later … March 2018, the Denza 500 was finally released in the largest electric vehicle market of the world…
Denza had already decided to keep the dual screen concept in the next generation of their EV, while they were looking for a fresh pair of eyes to re-design their digital in-car user experience. So our responsibilities as the chosen design partner covered the instrument cluster including the functionalities of the steering wheel controls as well as the infotainment unit with a 9 inch multi-touch display. We started the project with a visit of the Denza car dealership to have a first test ride with the previous EV model, Denza 400, to evaluate the user experience. What we encountered was more than 100 years of feature evolution under the hood and the legacy of gauges and direct control on the screens. We had some work to do.
Denza had already decided to keep the dual screen concept in the next generation of their EV, while they were looking for a fresh pair of eyes to re-design their digital in-car user experience. So our responsibilities as the chosen design partner covered the instrument cluster including the functionalities of the steering wheel controls as well as the infotainment unit with a 9 inch multi-touch display. We started the project with a visit of the Denza car dealership to have a first test ride with the previous EV model, Denza 400, to evaluate the user experience. What we encountered was more than 100 years of feature evolution under the hood and the legacy of gauges and direct control on the screens. We had some work to do.
After an in-depth usability evaluation of the existing in-car experience and customer analysis we started the ideation phase for the instrument cluster—our core component. Automobiles evolved into feature monsters and we got used to encounter this complexity spread out in front of us. So our focus was on reducing the amount of displayed information by adding situational context to create a dynamic, not distracting and safe driving experience. We created different concepts and experimented with dynamic visualisations which was followed by a form-finding process to integrate the digital components visually into the new interior design. The result was a model (see animation above) which visualises speed in its center and forms a triangle out of the battery status, power meter and the most critical factor of electric mobility, the range.
After an in-depth usability evaluation of the existing in-car experience and customer analysis we started the ideation phase for the instrument cluster—our core component. Automobiles evolved into feature monsters and we got used to encounter this complexity spread out in front of us. So our focus was on reducing the amount of displayed information by adding situational context to create a dynamic, not distracting and safe driving experience. We created different concepts and experimented with dynamic visualisations which was followed by a form-finding process to integrate the digital components visually into the new interior design. The result was a model (see animation above) which visualises speed in its center and forms a triangle out of the battery status, power meter and the most critical factor of electric mobility, the range.
After an in-depth usability evaluation of the existing in-car experience and customer analysis we started the ideation phase for the instrument cluster—our core component. Automobiles evolved into feature monsters and we got used to encounter this complexity spread out in front of us. So our focus was on reducing the amount of displayed information by adding situational context to create a dynamic, not distracting and safe driving experience. We created different concepts and experimented with dynamic visualisations which was followed by a form-finding process to integrate the digital components visually into the new interior design. The result was a model (see animation above) which visualises speed in its center and forms a triangle out of the battery status, power meter and the most critical factor of electric mobility, the range.
After an in-depth usability evaluation of the existing in-car experience and customer analysis we started the ideation phase for the instrument cluster—our core component. Automobiles evolved into feature monsters and we got used to encounter this complexity spread out in front of us. So our focus was on reducing the amount of displayed information by adding situational context to create a dynamic, not distracting and safe driving experience. We created different concepts and experimented with dynamic visualisations which was followed by a form-finding process to integrate the digital components visually into the new interior design. The result was a model (see animation above) which visualises speed in its center and forms a triangle out of the battery status, power meter and the most critical factor of electric mobility, the range.
After an in-depth usability evaluation of the existing in-car experience and customer analysis we started the ideation phase for the instrument cluster—our core component. Automobiles evolved into feature monsters and we got used to encounter this complexity spread out in front of us. So our focus was on reducing the amount of displayed information by adding situational context to create a dynamic, not distracting and safe driving experience. We created different concepts and experimented with dynamic visualisations which was followed by a form-finding process to integrate the digital components visually into the new interior design. The result was a model (see animation above) which visualises speed in its center and forms a triangle out of the battery status, power meter and the most critical factor of electric mobility, the range.
While designing the digital user experience for an automobile without combustion engine, one of the biggest questions we were asking ourselves was if the metaphor of analog gauges still made sense for a fully electric vehicle with digital instrumentation. The answer is “Yes”, at least in an abstracted way. Don’t get me wrong, other types of visualisations might make sense absolutely, but those will evolve step by step over time. Discarding an established metaphor abruptly would suddenly force drivers to learn a new concept of visualisation, which in the context of driving behaviour and safety is a tricky venture—especially whilst facing a concrete go-to-market date. We developed rather unconventional shaped semicircle gauges. On the one hand they pick up the design language of the interior design to create a consistent in-car experience and on the other hand they create a visual separation between driving related information and infotainment content, as well as define an imaginary axis towards the steering wheel control panels to support a clear mental model of the user interface.
While designing the digital user experience for an automobile without combustion engine, one of the biggest questions we were asking ourselves was if the metaphor of analog gauges still made sense for a fully electric vehicle with digital instrumentation. The answer is “Yes”, at least in an abstracted way. Don’t get me wrong, other types of visualisations might make sense absolutely, but those will evolve step by step over time. Discarding an established metaphor abruptly would suddenly force drivers to learn a new concept of visualisation, which in the context of driving behaviour and safety is a tricky venture—especially whilst facing a concrete go-to-market date. We developed rather unconventional shaped semicircle gauges. On the one hand they pick up the design language of the interior design to create a consistent in-car experience and on the other hand they create a visual separation between driving related information and infotainment content, as well as define an imaginary axis towards the steering wheel control panels to support a clear mental model of the user interface.
While designing the digital user experience for an automobile without combustion engine, one of the biggest questions we were asking ourselves was if the metaphor of analog gauges still made sense for a fully electric vehicle with digital instrumentation. The answer is “Yes”, at least in an abstracted way. Don’t get me wrong, other types of visualisations might make sense absolutely, but those will evolve step by step over time. Discarding an established metaphor abruptly would suddenly force drivers to learn a new concept of visualisation, which in the context of driving behaviour and safety is a tricky venture—especially whilst facing a concrete go-to-market date. We developed rather unconventional shaped semicircle gauges. On the one hand they pick up the design language of the interior design to create a consistent in-car experience and on the other hand they create a visual separation between driving related information and infotainment content, as well as define an imaginary axis towards the steering wheel control panels to support a clear mental model of the user interface.
I am very grateful that I had the chance to work on this project and besides being responsible for the user experience of the instrument cluster, I had the pleasure to work within a great international team to tackle the challenges of designing an in-car dual screen experience—instrument cluster and infotainment unit—in parallel. It was quite a task to keep the feature requirement documents well organised and communicated within the stakeholders while matching them with Chinese national traffic standards for controls, indicators and telltales. I learned many valuable lessons during this project and while the electric vehicle, once considered a niche product, has now entered the mass market I am looking forward to the next paradigm shift in electric mobility.
I am very grateful that I had the chance to work on this project and besides being responsible for the user experience of the instrument cluster, I had the pleasure to work within a great international team to tackle the challenges of designing an in-car dual screen experience—instrument cluster and infotainment unit—in parallel. It was quite a task to keep the feature requirement documents well organised and communicated within the stakeholders while matching them with Chinese national traffic standards for controls, indicators and telltales. I learned many valuable lessons during this project and while the electric vehicle, once considered a niche product, has now entered the mass market I am looking forward to the next paradigm shift in electric mobility.
UX Design Lead (Instrument Cluster)
UX Design Lead (Instrument Cluster)
UX Design Lead (Instrument Cluster)
UX Design Lead (Instrument Cluster)
Pierrick Calvez – Visual Art Direction
Quentin Blanchais – UX Design Lead
(Infotainment Unit)
Yi Jiang – Interaction Design
Yuki Gu – Prototyping, Animation
Pierrick Calvez – Visual Art Direction
Quentin Blanchais – UX Design Lead (Infotainment Unit)
Yi Jiang – Interaction Design
Yuki Gu – Prototyping, Animation
Pierrick Calvez – Visual Art Direction
Quentin Blanchais – UX Design Lead (Infotainment Unit)
Yi Jiang – Interaction Design
Yuki Gu – Prototyping, Animation
Pierrick Calvez – Visual Art Direction
Quentin Blanchais – UX Design Lead (Infotainment Unit)
Yi Jiang – Interaction Design
Yuki Gu – Prototyping, Animation
Pierrick Calvez – Visual Art Direction
Quentin Blanchais – UX Design Lead (Infotainment Unit)
Yi Jiang – Interaction Design
Yuki Gu – Prototyping, Animation
Denza (Daimler AG and BYD Auto)
Denza (Daimler AG and BYD Auto)
Denza (Daimler AG and BYD Auto)
Denza (Daimler AG and BYD Auto)
Denza (Daimler AG and BYD Auto)
Automotive / Electric Mobility
Year 2016 (released in 2018)
Schedule Test Drive →
Launch Website →
Automotive / Electric Mobility
Year 2016 (released in 2018)
Schedule Test Drive →
Launch Website →
Automotive / Electric Mobility
Year 2016 (released in 2018)
Schedule Test Drive →
Launch Website →
Automotive / Electric Mobility
Year 2016 (released in 2018)
Schedule Test Drive →
Launch Website →
Automotive / Electric Mobility
Year 2016 (released in 2018)
Schedule Test Drive →
Launch Website →
© 2020 Klaus R. Zimmermann. All rights reserved.
© 2020 Klaus R. Zimmermann.
All rights reserved.