Interaction between the In-vehicle Infotainment System and the 3rd Party Apps
Some products of the Garmin in-vehicle infotainment system would be connected to peripheral devices like mobile phones for using the 3rd party applications, such as Apple Carplay, Android Auto. In this project, I co-worked with my fellow UX designers to design the interactions between the infotainment system and other 3rd party applications.
The Design Process
Development of the Interaction Scenarios
We worked closely with our engineering team to confirm the technical detail between these device connections, and found out the following main points to be considered:
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Which 3rd party app is activated on the infotainment system?
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Which platform of the mobile device (iOS/Android) is connected to the infotainment system to use the 3rd party app?
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The mobile device is connected to the infotainment system by which way? (via Bluetooth? USB connection?)
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What are the interactions between the 3rd party apps and the native apps(such as Media, Navigation, Phone) in the infotainment system?
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What are the interactions between the 3rd party apps and the physical buttons on the infotainment system?
Having these points in mind helped us design the process for connecting/disconnecting a mobile device to the infotainment system, switching between the 3rd party apps and the native apps in the infotainment system.
Development of the Interaction Matrix between Different 3rd Party Apps
Another scenario we needed to consider was the switching between different 3rd party apps, including Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, SmartDeviceLink, etc. For example, if a user is using Apple CarPlay, is it allowable to switch to other 3rd party apps? If it is allowable then the Apple CarPlay will be terminated or it can be still executing in the background?
Again we worked closely with our engineering team to get a clearer picture of the technical aspects. Then we developed the Interaction Matrix between different 3rd party apps as a guiding principle for our following user behaviors design.
Part of the Interaction Matrix between different 3rd party apps
The Result
We finally delivered documentations showing interactions with different 3rd party apps. As I was in charged with the design for the interaction between Android Auto and the infotainment system, UI flow with several use cases was handed over to the engineering team for the reference of implementation.
The UI flow showing the first connection between Android Auto and the infotainment system
The UI flow showing the switching from Android Auto to native Navigation app
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