About – SMD

Infotainment System Concept

November 14th, 2023

The idea was to design a simple, multiple screen infotainment system with an emphasis on the user experience. The design contains 3 screens in total, The Instrument Cluster, Central Screen for controls and an Entertainment screen. Lets take a look at all three.

Instrument Cluster

Access the prototype here.

I based the design of the cluster on a tesla’s instrument cluster.

The idea was to have multiple customizable sections on either side of the center, which houses essential information. The central part undergoes changes when the Full Self-Driving mode is activated.

There is an additional screen layout while the vehicle is charging.

Additional Screens

General Layout

Expanded Layout

Alternate Layout – Track Mode

Criticism

Upon reviewing the designs, I personally observed that certain layouts contained excess information, resulting in a cluttered appearance.

Central Screen

Access the prototype here.

The central screen was designed to be easily accessible to the driver, with all essential controls placed within reach (Assuming left hand driving).

Climate

Climate controls have been integrated within the screen in line with the trend of replacing physical buttons into touch controls. The bottom climate control bar is permanent. Additional controls can be accessed by tapping the fan icon in the center.

AC direction can be controlled through the screen or additional touch controls proposed underneath the vents.

Navigation

The UI has been designed keeping navigation at the forefront of the user experience.

Additional Screens

Split view

Idea for a menu design

Criticism

The designs were critiqued for being somewhat simple, and I agree with that assessment. As my first project, I didn’t focus extensively on small details and, to be honest, lacked some of the necessary skills (though I’ve improved since then, with still a long way to go). I believe significant enhancements can be achieved by adding subtle textures that complement the design, giving it a more vibrant and lively aesthetic.

Entertainment screen

Access the prototype here.

The overarching concept involved incorporating a screen in the center, positioned above the control screen, which rolls up when the full self-driving mode is activated. Its primary function is to display media content such as movies, TV shows, or even facilitate gaming.

It primarily consists of three main sections, with each section further housing various sub-sections.

Design Ideas : Instrument Clusters

November 12th, 2023

The Basics

Instrument clusters display the essential information for the driver. This includes the speed, oil temperature & RPM (for ICE vehicles), range, caution lights such as headlight, handbrake and other critical and important indicators. There are also few other icons such as steering assist, lane keep function etc. that vary from vehicle to vehicle.

Cluster design should be made keeping the theme and design ideology of the car as a whole in mind. Some of the examples are blocky looking design for BMWs, inclusion of hexagonal patterns in a Lamborghini, flashy lighting and gradient filled look in a Mercedes or a plain and simple looking design for a Tesla.

And of course, this is not a hard and fast rule but is done generally to maintain the familiarity of a brand with the users.

My Design Collection

Will add more to the collection as time passes.

My creative concepts revolved around creating an instrument cluster featuring dynamic 3D elements, designed to incorporate captivating motion graphics for essential metrics such as speed, RPM, power changes, and more.

I understand that the current designs are simpler, as I prioritized quick ideation over meticulous detailing. Future refinements will focus on enhancing and adding intricate elements.

Hex cluster

This cluster is mainly designed for EVs.

The main idea here is that the blue hexagonal shapes appear and disappear based on the current speed and power utilized. The range indicator was designed to blend in with the overall theme and was included over the power meter. Other essential information such as gear, driving and brake regeneration has been included at the bottom.

Compact bike cluster

In this I challenged myself to include all the essential information in a small form factor cluster for an electric bike.

Instrument cluster for Mahindra

I designed a few instrument clusters while at Marelli. One of them was meant for Mahindra. I wanted to design something different from the regular dials.

I took inspiration from the new Mahindra logo and designed a 3D looking interface.

Given the swift nature of this project, the current designs are works in progress and may lack some details. I plan to refine and enhance them further until I achieve a level of satisfaction.

A simple cluster

It’s time for the debut of a cluster with regular old dials. I started off with a simple-looking design but integrated the fuel and the oil temperature gauge into the speed and rpm meters itself.

One thing I have to explore more is the use of bright colors. Balancing bright colors is a bit more difficult than the darker ones. I would like to use brighter colors in recreating a silver metallic finish or any other colors with their appropriate real-life counterpart finishes.

Dials but a bit better

Started off with this. Added a metallic housing around the cluster.

Dialed down on the metallic finish. Muted the colors and made the concentric circles more visible and added a background to reduce emptiness. Also changed the default font.

Review: Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen)

September 6th, 2023

Top of the pack.

Background

The 3rd generation of Apple TV 4K was released in 2022 with an A15 bionic chip. The chip is quite powerful with a 5 core CPU and GPU and the included Siri remote charges via USB C. It comes with HDR 10+ and Dolby Vision support.

Let us first discuss about the remote design and then move onto the software that runs on Apple TV, tvOS 16. (tvOS 17 has been announced at WWDC 2023 and is yet to be publicly released.)

Siri Remote

+ The remote is my favorite part of the device. It is simple and sleek. It contains just enough buttons to operate the device. Not more not less. The perfect pairing with the responsiveness of the device and software functions is what makes it stand out.

The remote is made from a unibody aluminum shell and has a good weight to it and feels premium.

– The only negative of this remote is that it is slippery and may fall out of the hand when held loosely (As evident with the dents on the remote in the image).

Buttons and functionality.

The remote has 8 buttons.

Power, Trackpad, Back, Home, Play/Pause, Mute, Volume, Siri. There is a USB C charging point on the bottom.

The trackpad is clickable and also is touch sensitive with swipe function in 4 directions. The swipe function can be disabled in settings if inconvenient giving it a traditional remote feel. There isn’t a tap function available for general-purpose clicks, and this is actually a positive feature as it helps minimize the occurrence of misclicks.

Why are these buttons sufficient ?

It is understood that the basic functions can be fulfilled with these buttons. What about the not so basic ones? Lets list them out.

1. Moving and relocating apps.

Hold down on the center of the trackpad. The tile will start wobbling and is free to move around. Click on the back button to return to normal. We can further press the play/pause button for additional settings.

2. Closing background apps

Apple TV allows quick switching between apps without reopening them. Closing the apps to clear up memory can be done by double clicking on the home button and then swiping up/double clicking up on the trackpad.

3. Seek/Skip function

Videos can be skipped in time steps by clicking on the trackpad. Additionally, there is an option to use the swiping gesture to seek to a particular point. This feature is highly useful and functions seamlessly. The trackpad swiping sensitivity can also be adjusted in settings according to personal preference. A similar action can be achieved by holding down on the trackpad in the desired direction.

In general, the swipe and click on trackpad serve different functions, but in the case of swipe function being disabled, it is replaced by double click.

4. Voice search

The voice search works really well but has limited usage. To activate it, hold down on the Siri button on the side and speak after visual and audio que. Search within the app works universally and doesn’t require app specific implementation.

Siri can also be used for general information like weather and also can be used for specific media controls, ex. Skip forward 40s.

– The downside is that activating Siri on any other page only brings up results from the Apple TV+ app or media available in the iTunes store. It doesn’t bring library across the installed apps. This is however completely on the App developer to implement based on what I have read. (I maybe wrong.)

There are numerous other app specific or mini functions that make use of these features. In summary, the remote is simple yet very functional.

# It’s important to highlight that the remote functions seamlessly due to the well-designed software and the device’s powerful responsiveness. They work in tandem to elevate the experience. It would have been a bad design if the software was not designed well or if the device was not powerful enough.

tvOS 16

Apple has a well established design system and it shows. The OS has the Apple feel to it and is familiar to those who are part of the ecosystem. UI is clean and minimal. Also NO ADS (Listen up Amazon).

The software design is very thoughtful and the remote functionality pairs really well once you get used to it.

Home Screen

The home screen has a very clean look with a frosted glass like texture. App icon tile enlarges when hovering on top creating a shadow. The clean look and subtle highlights are reflected across the OS.

The quick access menu when hovering over the app shows unwatched/incomplete, recommended, trending movies, tv shows etc. The exact view differs from app to app.

Most used/favorite apps can be place on top (the ones with the quick access view). The rest are placed below as a grid. The apps can also be placed in folders.

Attention to detail

Take a look at this. The app tile moves around as we gently move our finger on the trackpad. We might not notice this while using the device but small things like these definitely make a difference.

Native Apps

Lets now analyze some of the native apps to observe how they have been scaled up.

Apple music

The apple music app is very similar to the iPad and MacOS versions with a few changes mostly making use of the larger space available.

The motion design across the OS is straightforward, relying on smooth and basic transitions.

Apple TV +

The Apple TV app design has a layout very similar to competition such as Prime Video, Netflix or Disney Plus with content previews expanding beyond their carousel and a floating navigation menu on the top.

Slightly different design for category previews compared to the usual boxes with text and background image. Overall app looks good, so does the competition, nothing too different.

App Store and Arcade

The design of the App Store and Arcade are very similar, except for the live preview of games in the Arcade app. There’s nothing particularly standing out in the design that hasn’t already been discussed, and the layout is similar to other App Stores.

Apple TV supports the use of game controllers. Arcade games run quite smooth with no noticeable stutters.

However most of the games are simply mobile ports and so gaming doesn’t really matter for most users.

Settings

Again, nothing too fancy. Uncluttered design.

While this is a common practice in many software interfaces, it’s worth noting that the setting menu list occupies only the right half of the screen space, with the remaining area dedicated to displaying the Apple TV image. This arrangement has been implemented to enhance readability and user experience.

Also shout out to the high quality aerial screen savers. They are beautiful in the background and also amazing to look at.

Pricing

The pricing part does not really belong to the theme but I am adding this just because… Apple TV 4K is priced at 130$ for the standard version and 150$ for the ethernet version, higher than the competition such as Fire TV stick 4K max (55$), the more expensive Fire TV Cube (120$), Google Chromecast 4K (50$) or Roku Ultra (100$). The Nvidia Shield TV (150$) and Shield TV Pro (200$) are the most expensive but are more powerful and have more technical features.

Pricing aside, the point here is that most will be satisfied with the functionality of Chromecast or Fire TV 4K. They support all the video and audio formats that Apple TV supports and are much cheaper. However the differentiating factor is the software, responsiveness and *sigh* Apple ecosystem.

About Me

September 6th, 2023

My name is Srinivas Mareddi. I am a UI/UX designer with keen interest in car infotainment systems and motion design.