Ferrari Digital Instrument Cluster
Automotive HMI
The Challenge
Design Ferrari’s new in-vehicle digital dashboard that’ll deliver a better driving experience in the future generation of the company’s mild-hybrid Sports and GT cars.
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The Outcome
The quintessential Ferrari experience is established by a future-proof modular and scalable design architecture, an efficient interaction strategy, and a sporty yet elegant interface.​
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The Experience
It’s a beautiful sunny morning, perfect for setting fast laps in your Ferrari.
You get in, play your favorite music from the car’s connected phone, and head to a nearby race track.
​Upon arriving at the track, you set up the car in ‘Track’ mode, which displays performance parameters on a racy instrument cluster. That's exciting!
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You accelerate, brake, shift gears, and utilize the onboard battery to gain an extra boost, resulting in faster sector times shown on the panel.
You rev up the engine, adjust the vehicle setup, and find the perfect balance.
While saving the setup for the next round, your buddy calls. You accept the lunch invitation and follow the directions on the instrument cluster to the meeting place.
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This seamless experience, involving parallel interactions with the car instrument cluster and a dynamically responding graphical user interface, came to life through the partnership between Ferrari and my design agency.​​
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The Design Process
​​​This project was part of Ferrari’s upcoming first-ever mild-hybrid supercar. Onboarding electrical energy was special for the company, marking the beginning of a new era.
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The company decided to make significant changes to the vehicle electronics for its special project. One of the efforts was to install a full-color LCD instrument cluster in all future mild-hybrid Sport and GT cars.
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​​The idea behind upgrading to the new full LCD instrument cluster was to make the vehicle electrical system more energy efficient and prepare for the future in terms of vehicle infotainment experience.
The full LCD instrument cluster offered reconfigurability to display different information at will, increasing driver-system interaction complexity. The client sought experts in human-computer interaction to design the best possible system. The partnership between Ferrari and my design agency was established.
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After initial discussions and brainstorming on the purpose of this project and the role it’ll play for the future cars, we decided on a modular and scalable design for future mild-hybrid and all-electric cars.
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Before starting work, the client made it clear that the new design must reflect the company’s DNA, particularly its most relevant aspect.
“Tradition and innovation are melded each and every day to fuel the Ferrari legend. We are driven by our passion for both the road and the track. The challenge we relish most is to set ambitious targets and guarantee our clients' complete satisfaction.”
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Working as an agency consultant on the project, I had to deliver:
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The production level monochromatic interactive UI prototypes
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Detailed design specifications
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Full information architecture
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The project report that explains every aspect of the design
The final graphic design was to be done by the designers at Ferrari, so no details were needed from that point of view.
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Before formal research, I made a crucial decision: to focus on the holistic driving and interacting experience of the car, rather than individual design elements.
This aided the fellow user researcher in extracting every detail of the activities drivers perform while driving, before, and after the car.
We also explored the emotional aspects of driving and owning such a unique engineering marvel. We delved into how drivers think about their drives and cars when they’re away from them. This extra info would be very useful if we design the connected experience.
One important finding from our research was that…
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…every time drivers hit the race track and get ready to race by turning the race mode on, they would expect the car to transform into something special delivering something extra compared to what it does normally on the regular sport mode.
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This discovery later fully utilized the reconfigurable LCD, forever redefining the driving experience.
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​This client agreed with our research and liked the idea of designing a holistic experience instead of a static product.
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We were also advised by the client to focus on the project scope and avoid distractions from the potential connected experience, as the company isn’t ready to build it soon.
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I researched some of the most popular Ferrari models of all time to find patterns and reasons behind their instrument cluster designs. These successful models inspired me to identify the elements that contributed to their success, which will be crucial when designing the user interface for the new design.
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​One of the most important revelations for me was that the balance between form and function is fundamental to the Ferrari’s design philosophy.
Ferrari’s design of the F430 and F12 Berlinetta clusters showed they weren’t afraid to use advanced non-mechanical technology to create the best driver experience, unlike other top brands that stick to old gauges to maintain their brand identity.
In the final research phase, I understood the new hardware and its display information.
I collaborated with Ferrari’s test drivers and engineers to gain insights on maximizing performance by utilizing instrument cluster information and how the new electrical system elevates performance driving.
We interviewed Ferrari car owners and found that buying one is an emotional investment, and they expect nothing but the best.
The car owners expect the car to behave appropriately, whether it’s on track or in busy traffic. Their expectations are influenced by their experience with other products like computers and smartphones. This discovery was crucial for the interaction design of the new instrument cluster.
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Our research revealed that the drivers experience four unique phases:
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before driving
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while driving in sport mode
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while driving in race mode
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after driving
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To design the best holistic experience, we must focus on each phase separately and collectively, paying special attention to transitions. This work helped us build a concrete conceptual model that provides certainty and drives consistent user behavior.
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The study of driving situations, driver behaviors, and the impact of new hardware on driver behavior led to a solid information architecture that maximizes the new hardware’s capabilities. ​
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The information architecture of the new instrument panel is designed to be simple, efficient, and personalized. It’s also scalable to easily add or remove features based on the vehicle.
In the new design, the instrument cluster changes its appearance and the displayed information based on the car’s driving mode.
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The information appears and disappears dynamically as and when needed.
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The interactions align with drivers’ mental models and require less cognitive load.
The new system is far more intelligent than the existing one, helping drivers make the best decisions in the moment so they focus on driving and maximizing their experience while minimizing distractions.
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In order to deliver a pure driving experience, the idea was to design an interface and the interactions to complement the activity of driving instead of demanding attention by interfering between the driver and driving.
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Several design options were conceptualized, a few prototyped and tested, before finalizing a couple.
The client was particularly interested in the concept of a UI transformation that displays information differently when the car is in race mode.
In that design concept, the basic layout of the user interface stays the same but the tachometer form factor changes to create more space and accommodate the large amount of information that drivers need while racing.
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The new design displays different information and prompts users to perform specific actions during each transition phase. For example, when the car is in race mode, the system silences the music and phone, asking the user to set up the car for the race.
During the race, the system displays performance data after each lap, aiding the driver in improvements.
After the race, it shows the best performance and car setup, asking the user to save it as a favorite for future reference.
Single rotary jog dial was available to operate the entire system as opposed to the two separate controllers to operate two displays on the older systems. This hardware change defined most of the interaction patterns in the design by bringing in the perfect balance between flexibility and constraints of usability.
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On the graphics side, Some existing design elements were retained and tweaked to leverage the new hardware. But I discovered problems with the redesigned tachometer.
As the needle was replaced by a progress ring, it made reading tachometer a little difficult for drivers. In the old design, tachometer’s needle’s length allows drivers to estimate rev counts by fixing their eyes on any point and determining the needle’s angle.
Reading the tachometer progress ring in the new design was harder because its circular path is less easy for human eyes to track while focused in the center.
This problem was solved by adding a subtle offset path that's thick enough to be tracked easily by human eye. This fix completed the design and prepared it for further graphic refinement.
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The sporty geometric typeface, retained from the older design, suited the character of the Ferrari cars. Large type sizes with sufficient white space for gear and speed indicators make important information easier to glance at, while graphics with subtle corner radii are easier on the eyes.
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Ultimately, the final design reflected the brand’s nature and character while setting a new standard for instrument cluster experience in performance driving.
If you own a Ferrari and eagerly await an upgrade, you’ll immediately realize that this instrument cluster makes it a different and better Ferrari. Or if you plan to join the Ferrari owners club, this instrument cluster offers a glimpse into the sophisticated machinery you’ll acquire.
The client appreciated the design and it’s now in production as part of the company’s mild-hybrid electric vehicles.
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