Marianne Patera

Designing a direct manipulation HUD interface for in-vehicle infotainment

This paper introduces a novel design approach for an automotive direct manipulation interface. The proposed design, as applied in a full-windshield Head-Up Display system, aims to improve the drivers situational awareness by considering information as it becomes available from various sources such as incoming mobile phone calls, text and email messages. The vehicles windshield effectively becomes an interactive display area which allows the system to increase the quality as well as throttle the quantity of information distilled to the driver in typical driving situations by utilising the existing mobile phone network. Opting for a simplistic approach of interaction, the interface elements are based on minimalist visual representation of real objects. This paper discusses the challenges involved in the HUD design, introduces the visual components of the interface and presents the outcome of a preliminary evaluation of the system on a group of ten users, as performed using a driving simulator.