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Recent Entries

Buzzkill
by Tim McCoy
I’ve been struggling for days to put into words my reaction to the launch of Google Buzz. But the phrase I can’t get out of my head is “HOW could they screw up THIS MUCH?” Well here’s how: Google took Gmail, one of the most widely used web services on... (Continue)
Alternate dimensions
by Daniel Kuo
If you’re a typical designer working in the software world, the majority of products you’ll create will have strictly two dimensional interfaces — length & width only, pixels on the screen. As interfaces have evolved over the years many have gained a very simple kind of "depth": lighting effects, drop... (Continue)
An Insurgency of Quality
by Alan Cooper
Dave Hussman, one of the leaders of the post-agile movement, recently hosted a one-day conference on the topic of “Redesigning Agility”, and invited me to give a plenary talk. The focus of the conference and my talk were how to integrate agile development with interaction design. I was very... (Continue)

The Drawing Board: Fill 'er up

by The Editors on August 31, 2009

We find that looking at the world from the perspective of users and their goals makes us notice a lot of bad interactions in our daily lives. Being solution-minded designers, we can’t help but pick up a whiteboard marker to scribble out a better idea. We put together "The Drawing Board", a series of narrated sideshows, to showcase some of this thinking.

In this episode, we look at car information systems. Sure there’s a ton of useful data in there, but most of it is trapped behind a series of menus, idly waiting for us to enter the correct sequence of commands to unlock it. We imagine a car information system that’s more forthcoming with the data it already has, making us feel like we’ve got a great road-trip buddy in the passenger seat instead of a computer.


Filed under: Automotive, Critiques, Features, Information design, Innovation, Interaction design, Travel

Comments

On Aug 31, 2009, Niels Bom said:

So true! A car could also warn you if other fluids are low, or when you've been driving for a lot of hours and it's a good idea to take a rest.

I'd love an integrated system telling you the opening hours of the restaurants you drive by, or telling you to hurry to get to a certain one.

On Sep 1, 2009, Bryan Yurasits said:

Cars could also show you a mileage count down to your next required maintenance (oil, tire rotation, etc) so you don't have to get an oil change while on a road trip.

 

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