Being a car designer myself and having worked on designing interiors and exteriors in vehicles for over 6+ years. Though visually nice, I am afraid this type of vapor ware only pleases visual curiosity. There are a lot of challenges we face in improving the UI of car interfaces. One of them is "reach zones" and visibility. Though this visual is pretty. I would argue the cognitive load for a user to recognize what he/she is doing would be detrimental to operating a vehicle. That said, if this were an ideal scenario, HUD and "hands free" would be the optimal for an autonomous driving experience. It's hard for me to share in the excitement of others, having known what it is like to problem solve, and create a rewarding experience for users and drives alike when I see this type of "dribbbalisation" of work. The solution here is not a solution at all. The execution is close to what current automotive companies are doing which is shoving an iPad'ish control display with "tron" like UI in car interiors. It is however beautifully executed, but falls short on solving any kind of problem or making the user feel empowered and knowledgable through an experience.

Great idea, it seems you are going in a good direction! However, I do think asking users to keep in mind 4 (not that intuitive) gestures with 2 variations each (leading to a mental load of 8 actions) is too much... I think we could mix a couple of big touchable areas there, more graphic and distinguishable actions. Something easily distinguishable from a driver's glimpse.

I feel like the gestures will be confusing for normal drivers. It's an interesting concept but users will be frustrated by incorrect actions by using the wrong gesture.

Kind of like a digital I drive?http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDrive

Personally I hate touchscreen controls. Simple interactions, like those in the video, are safest and easiest as steering wheel controls. More complex interactions are moving toward hands-free voice controls.

Very unique and interesting UI concept though. I just wouldn't see this in a car.

It's definitely beautiful. But I don't think it solves the issue of being able to use controls without looking. In fact, I think it makes it a little more difficult. A knob gives a user tactile feedback that just can't be replicated by a flat surface. That being said, I'd install this in my car simply for the aesthetic appeal ;)

Nicely executed.

I'm having a hard time imagining people using this though. He mentions not having to look for tiny buttons, but you still have to look at the screen to check when you have the correct input method for example.

I'm not sure this is better than just having a volume nob. Without using it for real it's hard to say. On the face of it, these actions seem hard to learn/remember, but there is a learning curve whenever you're in a new car.

I like that this design addresses tactile feedback as an issue but I still feel as though there is a place for regular, old knobs and buttons.

Really nicely done, explained, and demonstrated Matthaeus - bravo! I love the simplicity and thought you put it into this.

Did you think about haptic feedback at all? One way to reinforce each mode of control would be to create unique haptic "heartbeats" so without looking you'd know what you're controlling. And having the screen be embedded in the car means there's no (real) battery concerns...

I do think though that the ultimate solution for something like this will have to divorce the control from the display — bringing the displayed information into the fabled HUD for cars that never really got any traction in the commercial auto industry. That's really the only way to make sure the driver's eyes don't leave the road...

As a lot of people have said already, it definitely addresses problems of doing simple things with little concentration.

However, when it gets into the details of switching 'modes', for example from volume/input, to navigating a playlist or scrubbing through a song, there is an additional layer of 'muscle memory' that must be learned (and I say 'learned' because it's not immediately intuitive to use different numbers of fingers on a touch screen in my experience).

My favorite thing is the first one he shares - how the interface treats the initial input as +/-0, instead of giving the user the whole scale and an indication of the current position. That's cool, and ironically I hate when physical dials do this, for example my camera has something like that and I wish it just had a regular dial with marks painted directly on it)

Looks nice but neglects lots of features that need a screen to work.

What about GPS? How do you navigate through playlists/albums?

Arguably these gestures would require more time to get right than the current versions. For example, volume controls on the steering wheel (which are already commonplace) allow drivers to adjust the setting whilst still looking at the road - something this can't do.

This is awesome.

It's not perfect, but really good. It's great to see someone thinking about these ideas in detail.

I only wish car companies put a similar amount of focus into these things. It's depressing that car UIs are so bad, and it's probably leading to actual deaths.

Interesting.

I love the way he said "driver" at 0:07. I had to listen to it about 15 times.

So well presented and designed. Looks amazing. Some good arguments in this thread too! Surprised to see only one mention of voice control. Surely that's the key to a true breakthrough in car UX. A combination of voice control and buttons is where it's at.

I wonder how easy it is to clump your hand on a touchscreen in the dash while driving (ergonomically). Doing the 5-finger claw everytime I want to adjust the AC seems awkward/odd. Maybe adjustable mapping? Very interesting though.

All this talk about taking your eyes off the road will be silly talk when google is driving all of us around.