What Makes a Good Car Dashboard? An Empirical UX Study

Описание: 🚗 Ever felt distracted by your car’s dashboard? As vehicles become smarter, the design of LCD dashboards significantly impacts driving safety and user comfort. This study reveals how different dashboard layouts affect driver readability, visual efficiency, and overall driving experience.

📍 What We Did: 🔹 12 experts analyzed and categorized various dashboard designs. 🔹 32 drivers tested dashboard readability in realistic driving simulations, focusing on both regularly displayed (resident) and temporarily displayed information.

📊 Key Findings: ✔ Dashboard layout significantly influences readability and visual search speed. ✔ Unconventional-shaped dual-dial designs (L-shaped) received the highest user satisfaction scores. ✔ Icons placed at the top of the dashboard are more easily readable than those at the bottom. ✔ If icons must be at the bottom, they should be at least 8 mm in size to maintain readability and safety.

💡 Why It Matters:
Good dashboard design reduces visual workload and keeps driver’s eyes on the road.
Strategic positioning of dashboard icons can significantly improve driver reaction times and comfort.
Insights from this study can help prevent accidents by enhancing in-vehicle information displays.

J. -L. Lin, M. -C. Zheng, T. Wang and P. Liu, "Driver-Centric Design: Empirical Strategies for Optimizing the Visualization of Driving Information on Vehicle Liquid Crystal Display Dashboards," in IEEE Access, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3560681.