Visteon e-Bee – Showcar

The e-Bee is a concept car for 2020 with car sharing options, ride sharing and smart mobility capabilities. The vehicle is based on a regular Nissan Leaf, stripped off to the chassis and rebuilt with Visteon parts.

The goal was to design the car for not only driving from point A to B, but to let the passengers organize their digital social live while in the car and share their car with others.

The complex information of the digital live and the information from the car was divided into three separate displays: one for the driving and car related stuff (left from steering wheel), one multitouch device – on the right hand side – for infotainment and the one in front of the driver (cluster) for routing information.

On the cluster the user can see a 3D-map of the surrounding area – rendered in real time – and augmented with all the social information needed to plan the trip and the live around it.

The system is based on a central server instance from VST (ui.cockpit) which handles all the communication between system components, the car and the driver and the passenger. The whole system can be remotely controlled from an Android tablet.

 

External Media:

  • Visteon e-Bee Microsite.
  • Chief Designer (Product design) Simon Harris of the Auto Envision Group about the e-Bee concept ate CES 2013 on YouTube.
  • Bertrand Stelandre (Design & Innovation manager at Visteon) at Electronica 2012 about the concept vehicle on YouTube.

Gaggenau Espresso Machine

In close collaboration with the design team at MDG in Munich, Useface created a mostly familiar user experience for a fully automatic espresso machine, based on the interaction concept of the Gaggenau oven series 200. The context and the scenario of using an oven differs from using a coffee machine, but the experience and the intuitive usage of the appliances should be the same to generate an overall brand experience.

Besides the concept the screen layout had to be redesigned and a whole bunch of new icons had to be created.


Images by courtesy of Gaggenau Hausgeräte GmbH.

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Health Manager

The biocomfort Health Manager is a personal health monitoring system. It is able to collect all relevant health data from a patient and gives advisory information when the regarding status is getting critical. Patients are empowered to track all relevant parameters with special data collection products from biocomfort, a personal Windows-PDA and and the associated PC-software.

Together with Helma Töpper, useface generated a visual design for both systems – the PDA and PC software – to create a consistent user experience on all platforms.

The major goal was to create an joyful and accessible user interface – no matter which age or constitution the patients are. Therefore the underlying interaction patterns (operating system  and user knowledge) and the info graphics played an important role in designing the intuitive UI.

Machine Control System

Rework of a machine control system for a production line of fleece. Fiber-opening, transport, bonding and refinement to packaging.

The aim of this project was to redesign the interface for the employees to be more catchy in situations where immediate action is needed and to be as calm as possible if everything is okay. The challenge was to design within the given boundaries. No interactive elements or patterns could be changed, due to strict hardware constraints.

The concept and design was presented as a functional click dummy to demonstrate the major workflows and test the user experience with some line workers. Unfortunately the project was discarded by management before the test could be realized.

Gaggenau Combi-Microwave Oven

Together with the design team at Gaggenau Markendesign, useface created a usabilty and interface concept for the microwave oven series BM27x. The concept is based on the oven and espresso machine  visual and interaction patterns, but with a lot more complex features – like programming and recipes like actions. The goal was to bring together the oven functionality with the microwave usage and let both lead to the same user experience.

In addition to the concept the screen layout and a lot of icons had to be created or redesigned – all in black and white – every pixel counts.
Images by courtesy of Gaggenau Hausgeräte GmbH.

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Visteon X-Wave – Showcar

To demonstrate the full range of the supplier potential, a regular BMW X5 was nearly stripped down to the chassis and rebuilt with Visteon parts inside and a completely new interaction system and design.
Two version were built: one for the European and one for the US-market. The interior design, the graphical user interface (GUI) and the interaction principles were adapted to both markets specific needs.

The general aim – with building a prototype like this – was to improve customer appeal by optimizing the user interface and reducing complexity. The applied user-centered design approach increases customer satisfaction by the intuitiveness of the hardware controls and the graphical interface. Driver distraction is reduced to a minimum.

The interaction is based on the main rotary control – in the very centre of the dashboard – and several touch buttons with haptic feedback. Driving related output is shown on the instrument cluster display with a 3D simulation of the turn by turn navigation. Entertainment and climate control is located on the the center information display (CID).

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