What’s Driving the Mini Cooper? Not the User Experience
experienced a revival in recent years that has brought two entrants to the US
market, the Mini Cooper and the Mini Clubman. Thoughtful engineering and
design have made Minis ‘zippy’ and fun to drive, roomier than expected and,
let’s face it, cool. Unfortunately, this same thoughtfulness does not carry
over to the user interface (UI) of the car dashboard.
User Centric, Inc. (http://www.usercentric.com), a
experience research firm, evaluated the usability of the Mini Clubman
dashboard. Based on extensive experience with in-vehicle systems and UI best
practices, the team found the dashboard suffers from awkward relationships
between buttons and the display, inefficient layout of controls, poor error
recovery and some labeling issues.
“Drivers are going to have continual trouble in two ways. First, simply
picking the button is hard because of the alignment. Second, since the
mapping of the buttons is always changing, I constantly have to divert my
attention from driving to the entertainment system; this creates a potential
safety hazard.”
In short, while Minis may be fun to drive, the dashboard UI diminishes the
overall user experience. For the full evaluation, visit
http://www.usercentric.com/news/mini.
About User Centric, Inc.
User Centric is a global consulting firm that focuses on improving user
experience. We apply our expertise to projects involving handhelds, web sites,
software, medical devices, print, packaging, and telephony services. Our
services include user research, user interface design consulting, information
architecture, usability testing, user interface evaluations, eye tracking, and
online surveys. Learn more about us at http://www.UserCentric.com.
User Centric is a partner of the UXalliance (http://www.UXalliance.com).
The UXalliance is the international network for user experience. Founded in
2005 by the leading usability companies in
they are ideally placed to lead international user experience research. The
UXalliance combines the resources of 14 companies, 220 user research
professionals worldwide, and over 40 testing facilities.
SOURCE User Centric, Inc.