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The migration of consumer products technologies from home, work, and play has created a potentially perilous situation within the automobile interior. This is because today’s drivers are required to interact with complex and sometimes needlessly complicated electronic systems. While these systems bring new levels of convenience, luxury, and connectivity to today’s motorists, they are also becoming an increasing source of frustration and distraction. To address this problem, OEM’s and suppliers must implement new user interface (UI) development methodologies that keep end-user needs clearly in focus, while at the same time provide the means for an efficient, cost effective product launch. This manuscript addresses this challenge by discussing a new process for user interface definition and refinement.

As automobile manufacturers seek to provide customers with a growing array of in-vehicle information and functionality, information management becomes an important task for the driver. The organization of controls and information in the human/machine interface (HMI) is a major factor determining the efficiency with which users access and process information. This paper describes two studies in which empirical psychological methods are used to identify users' conceptual organization of automotive system functions. Results provide guidance for laying out controls and structuring hierarchical menus in HMIs for two products.