Here's what we've been up to these past months! A whole new design language for Rivian, across the vehicles, web, mobile, and even down to our internal tools. We put together a little something to celebrate the hard work that went into every last pixel.

AGI is here

Went for a ride to get my mind off work and… oh, hello 😍

I get a lot of designers reaching out to me curious about what it's like to work in the car industry, and how to get there. So I wrote down all of my advice: www.theturnsignalblog.com/how-to-becom...

How to Become an Automotive UX Designer

A comprehensive guide to building a career in automotive UX design, from getting started to landing your first role.

theturnsignalblog.com

Claude one shotted the migration from Gatsby to Astro of my blog, zero mistakes. Threw in a little redesign for the fun of it! www.theturnsignalblog.com

The Turn Signal

The Turn Signal is my personal blog about automotive UX design and covers topics from in-vehicle UX design to research and general trends in the car industry

theturnsignalblog.com

Two months at Rivian and it already feels like so much longer. R2 is going to be a special car, so much exciting stuff in the works!

Yes, that’s right kids: theres a new episode of Looking Out - The Podcast! It’d have to be something pretty special to bring Joe and I out of semiretirement and the interior of the Ferrari Luce is nothing if not… um… special… Find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! open.spotify.com/episode/5yZW...

Looking Out - The Podcast

Design Podcast · Updated Bi-monthly · Connecting the dots across mobility, design, and culture. The partner show to Looking Out - The Newsletter.

podcasts.apple.com

I've joined Rivian! I'll be working as Lead Designer focused on Autonomy and I couldn't be more excited to help shape the future of driving! Just arrived in the Bay Area so say hi if you're around!

3 years ago, I didn't see a single BYD in Brazil. Now they're everywhere. BYD uses Android without Google services, and interestingly, every Uber driver I've talked to has been to "a guy" who unlocked the system to sideload Waze and other apps instead of using CarPlay or AA.

I salute the gentleman who is keeping his 164 alive in Brazil

This deserves 305,879,123 more views, wowowowowowowow youtu.be/f22vd9nfCOU

THE ALFA – One of the Rarest Alfa Romeos and the Man who Raced it

YouTube video by By Design

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A simulator study measuring cognitive load does not say much about safety. It’s super hard and expensive to actually study this, and explaining why is difficult because people have strong feelings about it. Touch screens probably impact safety but there is no good research yet about it.

David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · 10mo ago

New research finds that car touchscreens are so distracting that they induce "significant performance degradation" among drivers. Meanwhile, in-vehicle touchscreens remain completely unregulated in the US. doi.org/10.1145/3746...

Yesterday, I noticed a table view with a hover highlight that just felt "flickery." Sure, it worked. It's even what we expect. But inspired by Amber Case and her "Calm Technology" manifesto, I wondered if there was a way to make this simple, even trivial, interaction feel more analogue and calm.

Having fun with shaders!

Language learning apps never properly match my level or pace, so I spent an evening vibe coding a Portuguese verb-conjugation trainer tailored to how I learn. Wild how fast you can build something that works better than existing apps.

60 euros for what?! Why stop there, why not make the seat optional as well! It's only a 70K car...

Today I learned that carmakers can’t agree on which way the seat icons should face. BMW is so confused they use both directions in the same system. Obviously the only correct way is how Tesla and Rivian do it!

You know you are in Germany when there are rules on how to hang towels

The crowd favorite

My experiment with generative UI continues, now adding theme customization!

I wrote something new! It’s a UI design history essay about Mac’s Control Panel, and it uses emulation in some… maybe new and maybe interesting ways? aresluna.org/frame-of-pre...

Frame of preference

A story of early Mac settings told by 10 emulators.

aresluna.org

Congrats to NIO for being the only carmaker to design big touch buttons, and making them look great at the same time. Applying mobile design patterns to cars doesn't work. The gestures, although hidden, are also really helpful while driving!

One step closer to a fully customizable instrument cluster with generative UI! ChatGPT now creates custom React components based on mock vehicle data. Next up having it create custom UI themes!

I’m playing around with the idea of using LLMs to create a fully personalized instrument cluster UI. Still totally insane to me that you can build the foundation for something like this in just 30 minutes with ChatGPT.

It’s wild seeing this car, and then working daily with European car brands that used to set the standard for innovation but are so stuck in outdated processes and risk-averse culture that they’ll never be able to adapt. youtu.be/9IMIDQOQzf4?...

Xiaomi YU7 Review - China's Hottest EV Just Got 200,000 Orders in 3 Minutes

YouTube video by Inside China Auto

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It’s been crazy long since my last blog post but after I got the new Peugeot 3008 in the rental car lottery, I finally found the time to write down my thoughts. It’s super impressive in terms of hardware, but the software can’t quite match it. www.theturnsignalblog.com/a-ux-review-...

A UX Review of Peugeot’s New Interior: When Design Ambition Meets Software Reality

Does Peugeot's software match the excellent hardware?

theturnsignalblog.com

Not the biggest issue right now, but Dutch continues to not be a serious language

Some days I think the car industry is slowly starting to get software, then Nissan ships this. How?!

Experimenting with some storytelling to show how I created my travel map style

It genuinely baffles me how many carmakers mess up steering wheel controls. Obviously volume should be up/down, and playback left/right! Peugeot decided playback is up/down. And naturally, pressing up moves down your playlist to the next song.