As OEMs continue to pursue the SDV, they are increasing both the number of technologies in the vehicle and their significance to the overall user experience. However, the success of these technologies will ultimately rely on their ability to ensure that this experience is delivered in a seamless and satisfactory manner. In doing so, OEMs, developers, and suppliers can ensure successful product launches, while securing long-term customer loyalty with the vehicle and its ecosystem of digital services.
Recognizing the ways in which HMI features can positively or negatively contribute to the in-vehicle user experience is our In-Car HMI UX Evaluation & Benchmarking report series. Representing one of our best-selling, longest running, reports, it provides a comprehensive, analytical assessment of the latest HMI systems launched globally. Across 2024, our UX experts will review and benchmark the systems provided in eight recently released vehicles to understand who is leading the space, and who is falling behind.
Following our article on the Avatr 12 HMI UX report, this Insight covers the latest edition of the series, which analyzes the systems offered in the Audi Q6 e-tron. While sharing its IVI and UX highlights, we will also be outlining the strengths and weaknesses posed by some of the car’s most interesting technologies and more closely analyzing their implications on the end user experience.
A Closer Look at the Audi Q6 e-tron
The user experience of the Audi Q6 e-tron is largely hosted across a dual-screen setup, integrated under a single pane of glass, called the Digital Stage. This consists of an 11.9-inch Audi virtual cockpit display, and a 14.5-inch MMI touch display angled towards the driver.
An augmented reality head-up display (AR HUD) is also provided that reflects a large, tilted image plane across the windscreen towards the driver, showing relevant information such as speed, traffic signs, and navigation symbols that ‘float’ up to 200 meters (656 ft) in front of them. This setup extends to the passenger side of the vehicle, with a 10.9-inch MMI front passenger display that can stream multimedia content, support navigation, or find nearby EV charging infrastructure. An Active Privacy Mode, offered as standard equipment, shields the screen from the driver’s field of view – eliminating the risk of distracted driving.
On these displays, users interact with an infotainment system powered by Google’s Android Automotive OS, which utilizes OTA updates to keep in-vehicle content, features, and apps up to date. The scope of the user experience can be expanded with a store for third-party apps, such as YouTube, that are integrated directly into the system and do not require a smartphone to use. Today the store offers a broad range of apps across several categories, with this scope varying between markets and set to expand in the future.
Key Takeaways
Throughout the testing period, our UX experts highlighted the positive, holistic, contribution of the Audi Q6 e-tron’s ambient lighting technology to the overall user experience. Here, they praised the comprehensive scope of this technology and how well it was implemented, with Audi utilizing it to its full potential. They particularly admired the way in which it was used to communicate the status of HMI features and systems relating to personalization, safety, and communication. More advanced ambient lighting settings allowed for the user to personalize multiple zones, while some of its HMI-related use cases included Blind Spot Monitoring (BSM), turn signals, temperature changes in the HVAC, and EV charging.
For BSM and turn signals, the ambient lighting flashes on the relative side of the cockpit – flashing on the right-hand side when the right turn signal is activated, for example. When adjusting the HVAC, the ambient lighting briefly flashes either blue, when the temperature is turned down, or red, when it is turned up, before turning back to its default color. When plugging the EV into a charging station, the ambient lighting flashes across the width of the dashboard to indicate that it is charging.
Our experts felt that offering these use cases through the ambient lighting system, rather than Audi simply providing a more basic integration of it, represented a positive contribution to the user experience of many HMI features. This implementation further allowed the ambient lighting system to be utilized to its full potential, boosting the perception of its perceived quality and facilitating a smoother, more seamless, user experience as a whole.
While they enjoyed the HMI-focused feedback offered by the Q6 e-tron’s ambient lighting system, our experts found a variety of issues with the navigation system which they felt left room for improvement for the overall user experience. At the height of these issues were the number of inconsistencies noted between the EV’s displays. The team noted, for example, that turn-by-turn and lane guidance were absent on the central display, but were both present in the HUD and instrument cluster. Our experts were surprised by this absence, since previous Audi models had provided both forms of navigation guidance on the central display by default.
Further testing of this system unearthed further implementation issues, including the limited filter offering for some POIs, the keypad covering destination search results, the lack of a route preview (shown before the system begins offering navigation guidance), and conflicting destination search systems – Audi’s native search solution, and Google’s system (embedded within Android Automotive). The combination of these issues, our experts felt, was ultimately detrimental to the user experience of the Q6 e-tron’s onboard navigation system and could push some users to stop using it in favor of a preferred navigation app, or the navigation apps provided through a mirroring system such as Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
Analysis
A deeper dive into the Q6 e-tron led our experts to discover additional strengths and weaknesses that had an impact on the user experience of its key features and systems. One of these strengths was its rich offering of delight features (‘nice-to-have’ features that a user would discuss with their friends and family). The team appreciated the diversity of this offering, ranging from the vehicle’s AR HUD and the capabilities of its advanced exterior lighting, through to its interior ambient lighting and passenger display. The HUD was particularly praised for its selection of built-in video games, and how its AR functions supported the EV’s ADAS features and navigation system.
However, our experts felt this rich feature offering was let down by poorly implemented ADAS controls, which represented a potentially major drawback in the user experience of different ADAS features. Unlike most vehicles, which often adopt hard buttons on the front of the steering wheel for controlling ADAS, the Q6 e-tron’s ADAS controls are located on a stalk behind the steering wheel. This implementation can make the controls difficult for the driver to both see and locate, resulting in a steep learning curve as the user familiarizes themselves with both their location and how different ADAS are controlled through them. This could potentially lead to ADAS features being misused, especially among newer users, negatively impacting the user experience of the Q6 e-tron’s suite of ADAS, and the vehicle more broadly.
Next Steps
Overall, our experts felt that the Audi Q6 e-tron offered a strong mix of features and innovative technologies, particularly its interior ambient lighting, but was held back by implementation issues experienced in its ADAS and navigation features. Here, they admired the broad variety of use cases accounted for by the interior ambient lighting that helped communicate the status of key HMI features, but also noted a series of absences and inconsistencies within the onboard navigation system that could lead the user to forgo using it altogether.
When analyzing the user experience of the EV’s key features and systems more deeply, our experts uncovered a rich ecosystem of delight features that had the potential to enhance and extend these experiences in a positive manner, especially the AR HUD and its variety of use cases, as well as the vehicle’s use of advanced exterior lighting. Though, on the other hand, this analysis led our experts to discover poorly implemented ADAS controls that could subsequently make the car’s ADAS features feel both difficult and frustrating to use.
While we have highlighted some of the strengths and weaknesses presented in its overall user experience, the insights shared in this article represent only a portion of the knowledge shared in the full Audi Q6 e-tron HMI UX Evaluation & Benchmarking report. Spanning more than 150 pages, it provides even deeper insights into the user experience of the EV’s features across several key domains, including ADAS, infotainment, navigation, and voice recognition. While scoring these features and functions against our proven evaluation methodologies, the report also benchmarks the new vehicle against the vehicles reviewed in our 2023 HMI UX reports, and those reviewed in our 2024 HMI UX reports to date.
Want to learn more about the latest in-vehicle HMI solutions, their impacts on the end user experience, and which vehicle offers the best user experience? Then be sure to secure your copy of our In-Car HMI UX Evaluation & Benchmarking series!
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