Honda Autonomy Redesign.
A redesign of Hondas Adaptive Cruise Control and Lane Keep Assist display to make it safer and more usable for drivers.
Project overview
Design a user interface that improves on the design of the current autonomous driving features for Honda vehicles. Improve the adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist to make them better and safer for users.
Roles: Designer and researcher (Solo project)
Timeline: 2 weeks
Context: Coursework
The goal of this project was to redesign the displays and functionality of the Honda infotainment autonomous features because they were difficult to understand and made the car more dangerous.
I created the wireframe drawings by hand and then mocked up wireframes in an image editing program. I used much of the same design language as the existing iteration and made several major changes to aid usability.
Tools: pencil, paper, paint.net
Features
Users
The users of this system range from inexperienced to extremely experienced drivers. However, any users of the system will be relatively unfamiliar with the capabilities of the autonomous features. Therefore, calibrating their trust accurately is vital.
Correctly sized display
Specific icons for types of vehicles the system detects
Indications of the system’s limitations with an uncertainty display
Reordered the following distance setting
Configurable dashboard displays
Haptic and auditory feedback
The current system
Opportunities for improvement
Overall opportunities for improvement
•The icons are very small
•The icons are easily hidden by the wheel
•No clear handoff procedure for when the driver needs to take over
Problems with Lane Keep Assist
•The situations it can properly detect the lane lines in is unclear
•The indicator for proper lane detection is subtle and small and the difference between it working and not working is nearly imperceptible
•There is no audio alert if it fails which results in the car behaving as expected
Problems with Adaptive Cruise Control
• It is unclear if the CR-V can distinguish between a motorcycle and a car
•To increase the following distance the driver must first decrease the following distance which makes the driver feel unsafe
My sketches
Final wireframes
Change the icon to display what type of vehicle the car detects to add transparency and aid in driver confidence calibration.
Add an icon to display if the car is uncertain of its detection of a vehicle ahead.
Add an icon to display if the car is uncertain of its detection of the lane markings ahead.
Larger and bolder lane keep assist icons
Changed process for setting the adaptive cruise control following distance. Before, each button caused the car to follow closer. Now, the system elongates the following distance.
The dashboard is now configurable so that each display can be moved if it is blocked by the steering wheel.
The car now provides haptic feedback in the seat to help orient and alert the driver to situations that come up while driving.