Organizing Information in the Instrument Cluster of a Gasoline Vehicle with Advanced Driver Assistance Features. This is the second iteration of the design.
Feedback from students in SYDE 542 for V1 contributed to this current iteration.
Additions in V2 include the sub controls for the Information pages. This was to offer greater flexibility in what the driver can control with their steering wheel controls. As well the notification design was revamped such that the text does not cover the driver assistance region as much. Boxes around the settings for adaptive cruise control were also added to increase the salience of the settings.
This is the general layout of the instrument cluster. The coloured rectangles represent the real estate that the feature can occupy.
Red - Navigation/Driver Assistance
Orange - Left Information Page with controls and sub controls
Gold - Right Information Page with controls and sub controls
Blue - Notification area for alerts or status, will appear and disappear according to the presence of a notification
Green - Left and Right turn signal indicators
Cyan - Telltales (eg. engine, parking brake, high beams)
This is a 2017 Cadillac XT5 steering wheel, with its steering wheel controls modified. This layout was designed for the instrument cluster. Notable features include the mapping of the controls to what is seen on the instrument cluster. The larger up/down buttons are spaced further from each other, reflecting the controls to cycle through the information pages. The smaller, closely spaced up/down buttons reflect the sub controls for the information pages or the driver assistance features. Other controls such as the volume and handsfree calling controls have been kept.
The use of tactile feedback is used to help the driver recognize the controls without looking. The black lines separating each button will be felt by the driver's fingers, giving each button a distinct separation. As well, for the up/down buttons, the carets are also raised from the button.
Steering wheel base image source: http://st.motortrend.ca/uploads/sites/42/2016/03/2017-Cadillac-XT5-steering-wheel-1.jpg
Door Ajar. From V1, the changes include the location of the notification.
Regular driving layout. Changes in this include the colour of the outline of the tachometer.
Low Fuel Warning. No changes were made to this from V1.
Right turn signal activated. No changes were made to this from V1.
Lane departure warning. No changes were made to this from V1.
Auto-Stop notification. The use of colour received positive feedback here by a student from SYDE 542. Changes here from V1 include the location of the notification.
Imminent collision detected. The location of the notification was changed from V1. As well, the object that the vehicle is about to collide with is highlighted red, to increase awareness of what the vehicle is detecting. Wording was also modified, as vehicles with this feature often include automatic braking as well.
Traction control ON. Changes from V1 include the location of the notification and the wording of the language to past tense. For a safety feature such as traction control, the feature will likely activate before the display has time to show the notification. This means when the driver sees the notification, the vehicle will already me limiting the power output.
Adaptive Cruise Control Distance setting (Far). From V1, changes include more salience for the onscreen controls the driver is manipulating. Here, the controls for following distance are highlighted blue, along with the graphic showing the selected option's meaning graphically.
Adaptive Cruise Control Distance setting (Close). When the "Close" setting is selected, the bar indicating the other options (eg. Medium, Far) are not removed completely, but instead greyed out. This informs the user of the meaning of "Close" relative to the other options.
Adaptive Cruise Control Enabled. From V1, changes include the presence of the following distance indicator, as well as the controls for adjusting the cruise control speed and following distance. This was done to simplify the layout, as the adaptive cruise control feature is meant to require less driver intervention. The following distance controls were removed completely in this view because the adaptive cruise control will attempt to maintain that distance. This means that the indicator will be static for the majority of the time.
If the driver presses on the cruise control button on the steering wheel, they will be able to edit their settings.
Adaptive Cruise Control Slowing down. Changes from V1 include the redesign of the cruise control indicators.
