Altia’s User Experience Director, Steve Tengler, recently had an article published in Product Design and Development. “From Whence Come Failures” outlines various failure mechanisms and how to design for these different modes. Click here to read the full article.
Webinar – Altia Design 101: Ready, Set, GUI!
February 8th, 2012 by Jesse Marble No comments »
Guided Tour of Altia Design 10
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
1:00 PM EST
Altia Design allows you to rapidly create interactive user interfaces. In this webinar, Brian Stewart will walk you through Altia Design and build a demo automotive interface from scratch. This one hour webinar is ideal for anyone interested in a condensed overview of core functionality as well as popular tips and tricks for designing beautiful interfaces. Brian is one of Altia’s Senior HMI Developers and has over seven years in the trenches with Altia Design, including hundreds of hours providing training and support for Altia customers.
Register now now for an expert tour and demo, including:
- Overview of Design – Learn how to navigate your design and virtualize your model for easy review.
- Animation, Stimulus, and Control – Learn how to build interactive objects from the ground up.
- Decks, Image Objects, and Text I/Os – Learn how to leverage these three existing library objects to create any interface you can imagine.
- Live Demo – Brian will build a multi-screen automotive interface from scratch.
New Appliance Demo
February 1st, 2012 by Jesse Marble No comments »Put the FUN in FUNctional – Altia Refrigerator Demo
Check out this refrigerator touch screen demo we built with Altia Design. Watch us change temperatures, ice settings and the time, write a note, manage a shopping list and even play a game on this stunning and simple display.
To download a fully interactive version of the demo to play with, contact sales@altia.com
2012 Detroit Auto Show
January 30th, 2012 by Jesse Marble No comments »A few belated photos and thoughts from the Detroit Auto Show. We had lots of our user interface / embedded projects featured by OEMs at this year’s show. Driver clusters and information displays, as well as TFT touchscreen center consoles. We wanted to show off a cool booth featuring Dodge’s new midsize car, the 2013 Dart. The booth featured a car interior (called the “uconnect”) with a large display showcasing the driver cluster above.
2013 Dodge Dart
2013 Dodge Dart
2013 Dodge Dart
The Invisible UI
January 17th, 2012 by Jesse Marble No comments »While browsing the latest and greatest from CES, this cool new technology popped up:
I’ve personally always found typing on the iPhone awkward to say the least. Must be my fat thumbs. But this technology didn’t reveal a ‘eureka’ moment for me. What came to mind:
1) Is the best user interface an invisible one? (Reminds me of a blog series we did about User Experience. Here’s a post about OnStar http://www.altia.com/blog/2011/03/28/interfacing-about-user-experiences-part-four-onstar/ …their user interface is essentially just one button)
2) How do we (humans, technology users) like to ‘memorize’ something like the unique taxonomy this method uses?
3) 5th graders were able to learn it. Compared to what, a standard keyboard? Why 5th graders? What about my grandma, would she find this easy to learn and use?
What do you think?
Is this technology something that could stick? Can you see Apple or Google snatching up a company like this and incorporating this into iOS6+ or Android?
CES without Steve Jobs
January 17th, 2012 by Mike Juran No comments »
The Apple Effect
“But wait,” you say, “Steve Jobs never went to CES, so this year is no different.” You’re right, of course. But the net he cast always permeated the show. “What was Apple doing next?” “How did Apple’s products released last year affect what the rest of the world would do this year?” “How do other manufacturers fit into Apple’s eco system, or battle the juggernaut?”
This year, the Vegas show seemed different. Oddly so. Nobody was talking about Apple, but iPhones and iPads were being shown everywhere. Mostly used as generic touch screens that play host to apps that control or monitor one or more of your home appliances or electronic devices. Check your oven temperature from your phone. Adjust your stereo from your pocket. Get the status of your home security system. Steer you robotic vacuum cleaner. Whatever. Of course, Android and other tablet variants were also used as the remote control for your life. But the Apple fear factor seems to have subsided, even if their devices where ubiquitous. Dear Cupertino, welcome to the mainstream.
Splash-worthy?
2012 Altia GUI Design Contest
January 11th, 2012 by Jesse Marble No comments »
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Win Internship + Scholarship! Calling all Students! Altia wants you to design a cutting-edge user interface using our user interface engineering tools. Create any sort of automotive GUI – could be a driver information cluster, center console/infotainment, heads-up visual display, or even rear-seat entertainment – that offers an outstanding user experience. If your design comes out on top, we’ll show you the money! Head over to http://www.altia.com/contest and register to get started. When? Who’s judging? Who is invited? Questions? |
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Altia Sponsors the 2012 Motorcity Automotive Industry Night
January 10th, 2012 by Cheryl Falk No comments »
Steve Tengler, Gary Greenwood, Janan Darancou and Daniel Darancou, Chief Designer of CH Auto Technology Corporation, discussing the future of automotive design at the 2012 MAIN Event. (January 8, 2012)
The 2012 MAIN Event welcomes auto execs and celebrates student automotive concepts
On Sunday, January 8, Altia joined Ford Motor Company, Inteva Products, Dassault Systems, Navistar and many others in sponsoring the 2012 Motorcity Automotive Industry Night Event – the MAIN Event – at the Coach Insignia restaurant at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit.
This event welcomed automotive professionals from all over the world to celebrate the eve of the North America International Auto Show – as well as showcase student projects from Lawrence Technological University’s Transportation Design Program. The evening also included a keynote address from Bob Lutz — automotive business legend with a resume that includes executive roles at General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Chrysler and BMW – as well as a Fotoula Lambros fashion show.
