ADAS Voice - Sound experience
I was lead designer - Sound Design, Voice User Interface Design
What should the sound experience be during ADAS?
Through ADAS Voice, we offer helpful sound guidance and interaction during ADAS functions, such as LKS, ACC, Warning and Parking.
Problem Hyphthesis
ADAS features are becoming more and more popular within customers, and it's abilities have also been improved a lot since the past few years. However, the related design of user interface in ADAS hasn't been satisfying, which means a big lack in user instructions, system feedback or interface design.
Under such circumstances, we decide to design a more friendly user interface during ADAS, and since it's strongly driving related, we use sound as the main communication channel.
Work Plan
Desktop Research and Design Principles
- We did desktop research on sound alerts during driving, and according to NHTSA, we generated 5 principles for our ADAS sound design:
- Perceived: Add sound (include voice broadcast) notices appropriately , Optimize emergency audio, increase emergency tone frequency
- Understandable: Add voice broadcast in appropriate scenarios, Reduce the types of chimes, and design different types of chime tones, Design a fusion mechanism for image, text and sound
- Predictable: Add corresponding notice sound when ADA is upgraded or downgraded, Give the driver enough time to react before prompting
- Trustworthy: Add sound (include voice broadcast) notices appropriately, Add reasons while ADA state changing on visual design
- Controllable: Allows users to set the broadcast mode, volume, voice tone.
Current status usability testing
We conducted a usability testing based on the current status of our ADAS functions to verify our initial hypothesis and had some findings.
In addition, we did interview with users to see their daily usage with ADAS and observe our chances to improve the experience.
Sound Experience Design
Therefore, we started designing the ADAS sound experience based on our findings.
- The design includes:
- System flow
- Notification Modes
- Prompting design
- Sound design
System Flow
We went through all the features, clarified the system behaviors and turned documents into visualized charts, which gives us clearer view on how ADAS works.
Notification Mode
According to our findings, there is huge gap of needs between novice and expert drivers. Novice drivers are not clear of how ADAS works and needs instructions for them to have confident while trying ADAS. On the contrary, expert drivers seek a clear and simple interface for them to notice status change, and they are fond of a non-disturbing experience during driving.
Based on frequency of usage and security risk, we arranged the functions and defined the chime / voice that could be switched off for expert users to avoid disturbance.
Prompting Design
- We defined the principles of prompting based on general principles of voice user interface design:
- Timely response
- Easy to understand
- Friendly guide
- Efficiency
- Reduce Ambiguity
Sound Design
Based on principles of designing sound in Vehicle (NHTSA) along with our branding sound DNA, we designed the chime of ADAS features.
Camping Mode Alarm of the vehicle, representing sound DNA
LKS/ACC On:
LKS/ACC Off:
Blue Cruise (AutoPilot) On:
Blue Cruise (AutoPilot) Off:
Function fail to activate:
User Testing Validation
After designing the experience, we conducted another user testing to varify our design.
And through the validation, our design are varified that it significantly improves users' understanding of the functions, reduces their reaction time during emergencies and reduces disturbance for expert users.
Furthur Steps
The experience we designed have been approved and planned to OTA. We then designed and developed the experience during parking features, such as APA and HAVP, providing users with guidance and alerts during parking.