Hot, Cold, Defrost...Whatever

When considering the desirable interior features of a car or truck, climate controls are not high on anyone’s list. Climate controls aren’t exciting or sexy, they’re a functional necessity. Often placed at the bottom of the center console of any vehicle, they are nearly always given a paltry amount of dash real estate. Manufacturers make certain they are present and usable, but tend to focus more on the visual impact of the center console on the driver’s psychology, such as, “this looks sleek” or “this is cool”. Surveying various climate panel designs over the past decade, most designs seem to be somewhat of an afterthought; and the experience of using them seems to support that observation.

You may be wondering: “Aren’t these climate controls being technologically upgraded? I’m seeing so many touchscreen systems now, won’t the climate controls be included and improved within those modern systems?” As it turns out, there’s a complicated answer.

Issues With Touchscreen Interfaces

There has been a proliferation of infotainment systems in vehicles recently, especially over the past 10 to 15 years. Although…the debut of touchscreen infotainment arrived with the 1986 Buick Riviera (I know…I was shocked, too! It was the first time a commercial vehicle had a touchscreen infotainment feature).

Touchscreen interfaces with music, navigation, and other apps have dominated the attention of drivers and car manufacturers, and unsung but necessary features, such as climate controls, have come along for the ride. Climate controls are no longer solely operable from physical controls, they are now featured in touchscreen and even speech recognition interfaces. But, while the trend of technological progress in vehicle manufacturer infotainment systems is catching up to smartphones and tablets, they are not entirely effective and in some cases result in frustrated, distracted drivers.

Problems With Speech Recognition

In addition to touch screens, voice activated/speech recognition technology is also being used more often to control various features, including most of the climate options (air conditioning, temperature, fan speed, vents). One of the main issues with any speech recognition system is its performance in a driving environment, which is often full of noise from the vehicle itself, traffic, and anything in the environment in close proximity to the vehicle. A computer attempting to recognize a driver’s speech under noisy, but not untypical driving conditions, may not be accurate enough to be useful. Add music to the mix, or backseat conversation, and the issues are compounded.

In a 2016 study, JD Power and Associates reported a trend of driver dissatisfaction owed to vehicle speech recognition systems that either didn’t understand what people were saying, or provided the wrong result for a command. Fast forward to 2020, JD Power and Associates again reported issues with vehicle technology: “almost one-fourth of all problems cited by new-vehicle owners relate to infotainment”. That same study uncovered the top two complaints among drivers regarding their vehicle’s infotainment system: first, they are complicated to use, and second, they have disappointing performance. A separate 2020 survey of roughly 73,000 Consumer Reports members on how they rated the usability of their vehicle’s infotainment system revealed that many car-native systems were difficult to use compared to a smartphone interface.

That same 2020 Consumer Reports study also uncovered that drivers had higher satisfaction with systems that were easier to use, and required less visual and mental distraction. This shouldn’t be surprising; what driver wouldn’t want that? Until a manufacturer’s own voice interface and touch screen systems are better engineered and designed to limit driver distraction, they will need to provide drivers with a better experience, or at least they should. Such solutions might offer less technologically endowed, modern interfaces that focus on driver experience; and until most manufacturers find effective, distraction-free solutions with those technologies, many drivers will be using their smartphones for navigation and music. One could rely on smartphone apps until the vehicle manufacturers catch up.

But what about those drop-dead-boring climate controls? Improving a driver’s experience with climate control operation can be accomplished without the problematic designs for vehicle touchscreen and conversational AI (vocal interface). In fact, there’s a common feature that exists right now which appears to be underutilized. There are ways to improve existing designs with only physical controls and LCD screens, and with one additional element: audio confirmation.

Auto Climate

Considering the challenges outlined above, I sketched an approach to vehcile climate control design that relies on common physical controls found in vehicles and aircraft, including LCD screens. It also includes aural feedback, via the option for the driver to hear an audio confirmation following each control adjustment. Aural feedback is signifcantly underutilized in vehicle operations, especially to settings adjustments such as cruise control and climate settings. But, by far the most substantial improvement I identified in my research is to bring a common, ubiquitous feature to the forefront: the "Auto" feature. This feature, when enabled, allows drivers to simply set their desired temperature and let the system do the rest of the work (fan speed, vent selection, airflow, and A/C). Even for vehicles that have a conversational AI and a touchscreen, it is an ideal way to achieve the best hands-off, mind-off approach to adjusting climate.

A Feature Often Misunderstood?

There are two prevailing issues with how the Auto feature is being presented in the majority of vehicles that use it. First, many people are not really aware of what the Auto feature does, never having studied the manual (a more common occurrence than it should be), or they may be only vaguely aware of how it works. Second, designs by the majority of manufacturers that have an Auto feature de-emphasize it on the panel. Taking the 2019 Subaru Outback example above as an average presentation of the Auto feature, one can see how it appears to be ambiguous as a regulator for most of the feature controls they have access to via buttons and knobs. The Auto feature therefore appears as an additional setting that drivers may want to select instead of something they may want enabled, nearly all of the time. Again, look at the example image above; you can see that the Auto control is just one option surrounded by the far more familiar controls (temperature, A/C, fan speed, defrost, airflow).

While the Auto feature may be labeled and present on the control and/or an LCD screen, there is an additional distinction which is not adequately communicated to the driver in the design: the difference between full Auto versus partial Auto. The common solution is to either show or not show the text “Auto” via an LCD screen, or to use the presence / absence of a light on a control labeled “Auto”. Similarly, when the “Full Auto” feature is engaged, it is common practice to show the words “Full” and “Auto” together on an LCD screen. Some systems may not even show the driver a difference between full and partial Auto. Making that distinction is too difficult given the way most climate panels are designed.

Designing With an Emphasis on the Auto Feature

If climate panels using primarily physical controls were redesigned with an emphasis on communicating what the Auto feature does, drivers would understand it and therefore use it more often. Auto as a feature works really well. But the way it and the climate system as a whole are communicated could use improvement. Once the Auto feature is made unambiguous through the design, drivers will spend less time fiddling with their climate controls unnecessarily and more time focusing on traffic.

I created a possible design solution that could be applied to any vehicle. It accomplishes the goal of clarifying the Auto feature's purpose through the design. It also supports the possibility of eyes-free operation through the use of distinct and easy to manipulate controls in conjunction with audio confirmation of changes following an adjustment. Here’s a brief scenario to help illustrate.

That type of interaction should give a driver confidence that they know which control and setting was changed. There’s no need to look at the climate panel. To acheive this eyes-free operation, a driver may need to spend time gaining familiarity with the panel, but it should be a basic mental map that doesn't require detailed memorization. To improve upon that further, if recognition over recall is leveraged, a manufacturer could use the same familiar placement of venting options, which has existed for decades.

I do think the better solution is to have an intelligent system based on an AI interpreting vocal commands and anticipating driver needs based on behavior and profiles. Such a design would likely be much more accessible and inclusive. Overall the haptic plus aural feedback combination I am proposing is a notable improvement for budget and non-luxury vehicles and one that could be used until voice interaction and recongition inside of a moving vehicle is improved and becomes more affordable.

To see an example of what such a climate panel might look like, view my personal design, which uses a combination of aural feedback and ergonomic physical controls.