Keeping eyes on the road
aided by colorful, simplified HUD systems
DETROIT – In the days of wearable technology that connects you to the world
around you, the automotive head-up display, or HUD, is a seasoned veteran.
General Motors pioneered the system decades ago, yet its design teams continue
to refine both appearance and functionality to help reduce driver distraction.
“We know that
keeping eyes on the road is critical to safe driving – and recent studies back
this up,” said Jeff Boyer, vice president
of GM Global Vehicle Safety. “Head-up displays
can play an important role in maximizing ‘eyes-on-the-road’ time, and that’s
what we’re striving for.”
The Virginia
Tech Transportation Institute’s 100-car Naturalist study showed that the odds
of a crash or near-crash more than doubled when a driver’s eyes were off the
road ahead for more than two seconds. In 2013, the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration released a study that concluded that visual and
manual distractions – such as dialing or texting on a handheld phone –
increased between two and three times the risk of getting into a crash.
By projecting
pertinent information onto the windshield and into the driver’s line of sight,
head-up display systems allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road ahead
instead of glancing at gauge clusters, infotainment screens and other devices.
GM research shows drivers can spend 134 milliseconds shifting their gaze to a
gauge cluster and back to the road. At 70 mph, a vehicle can travel 13 feet in
that time, roughly the average length of a passenger car.
There’s far more work involved with developing HUD systems than just creating
hardware: careful attention is paid to how the display looks and how it
interacts with both the driver and other systems within the car.
“We have to make smart decisions about what content goes into the HUD,” said
John Weiss, an interaction designer for HUD systems, “and how we can then
present it to the driver in a manner that’s easy to read and intuitive to use.”
Simplified Screens
Today’s head-up displays, offered on more than 30 percent of GM vehicles sold
in North America, can provide far more information than the first production
system introduced on the 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. To reduce clutter,
drivers can select from screens that focus on navigation, audio information, a
tachometer, or simply a speedometer.
“The HUD screens are tailored to the driver,” said graphic designer William
Thompson. “We do lots of prototyping, where we mock up different arrangements
or graphics and get feedback from users.”
Fine Lines and Fonts
Compared to a gauge cluster or infotainment touchscreen, the head-up display
space is constrained, forcing designers to work within a limited space.
Designers inherently “think small,” but legibility restricts how far elements
can be downsized. Icons are simplified, and lines must be at least four pixels
wide. Fonts typically considered “grotesque,” – meaning letters are distinct
and discrete from one another – are used.
Choosing the Right Colors
The use of a
full-color screen allows designers more flexibility in selecting what colors to
project. Each hue in the display is carefully selected to ensure it projects
well and appeals to the driver.
Real-world testing helped the design team finalize color selections. White –
the brightest color in the liquid crystal display, or LCD – is used for most
fonts and displays. Winter testing helped find a hue that didn’t disappear
against a snowy background. “We’ve done quite a bit of legwork to see what
colors work best on the road,” said Weiss. “Some colors might look good when
viewed on a computer screen but appear quite different when projected on a
windshield.”
Simple Controls
Although the head-up display duplicates information shown elsewhere on the
instrument panel, it doesn’t require a second set of controls. “You might have
an incoming call notification pop up on both the gauge cluster’s driver
information center and the head-up display,” says Weiss, “but you don’t have to
dismiss each one separately. We make sure the control interface on the steering
wheel can interact with both displays.”
In order to further reduce complication, HUD-specific controls largely focus on
adjusting the screen’s height and brightness to the driver’s liking.
General Motors Co.
(NYSE:GM, TSX: GMM) and its partners produce vehicles in 30 countries, and the
company has leadership positions in the world's largest and fastest-growing
automotive markets. GM, its subsidiaries and joint venture entities sell
vehicles under the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Baojun, Buick, GMC, Holden, Jiefang,
Opel, Vauxhall and Wuling brands. More information on the company and its
subsidiaries, including OnStar, a global leader in vehicle safety, security and
information services, can be found at http://www.gm.com
