Sunswift 7 Centre Display HMI
- Oliver Wan
- Apr 7
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 7
Project Overview
In this project, I was tasked with the visual redesign of the centre-display of the Sunswift 7 solar car. The purpose of the redesign was to meet 3 key objectives:
To improve the visual design to be more appealing for the official launch event of the car
To improve usability for the driver and passenger for the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge
To improve perceived practicality for Birdgestone World Solar Challenge Judging.
The Problem
Let's face it, the old UI was ugly. The headlight controls had poor indicators of state, the battery state of charge lacked granularity, there were issues with alignment, poor visual cohesiveness and a complicated settings interface. My goal was to fix this.
The Team
As interior department lead, I was responsible for conducting user interviews, visual design, UX testing and Figma prototyping.
I collaborated with two embedded systems engineers who worked on the technical implementatation.
The Design Process
The design process for this project was simple.
Solicit requirements - interview drivers, passengers, team managers and the team principle to understand required functionality, functional constraints, use cases, design criteria and priorities.
Develop some preliminary layout mockups.
Conduct user testing.
Define visual identity through moodboarding and UI kit
Moodboard 
Visual Design Language Ideation Create medium fidelity prototype including touch interactions
Hold a handover meeting with embedded systems engineers
Final Prototype Implement changes
The Outcome
The launch event was an astounding success, with dozens of philanthropists attending and 3 new industry partnerships being formed, the car clearly left a strong impression!
The car placed first in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, assessed based on practicality, efficiency and distance travelled.
