Motorcycle UX: Riding in the Fast Lane

Fueling the Ride

On a bike, the fuel gauge gives several key feedback signals. Its design should maximize information exchange and minimize the amount of time it takes to read the information.

First, having a fuel gauge is a recent motorcycle development, though cars have had them since 1922. Before there were fuel-injected engines, motorcycles used a petcock approach to fuel delivery. A petcock valve has three positions: Off, Run, and Reserve. Figure 3 illustrates a typical petcock.

Following normal operating procedures, a rider first puts the petcock’s valve on Run. Then, when the fuel level drops below that in the taller tube to which the Run setting provides access, the bike begins to stutter as it runs out of fuel. The rider must reach down with his left hand to move the petcock from Run to Reserve—and do so before the bike quits altogether.

Sadly, this gymnastic shuffle not only increases the rider’s danger quotient, it often leads to frustration—either the rider accidentally moves the petcock to Off, killing the engine, or the rider discovers that, indeed, he’s already been riding on Reserve and, consequently, has no more fuel.

Enter the fuel gauge. By design, fuel-injected engines don’t have petcocks, but instead, use a computer to regulate the fuel and air mixture. Bikes without a fuel gauge often have a so-called idiot light, which is usually an amber light that indicates a low fuel state.

The Breva’s fuel gauge provides several points of information to riders, as Figure 4 shows. This information helps riders manage fuel, travel distance, and pit stops.

I really like this gauge from a UX standpoint. Here’s why:

• The red needle provides good contrast on the gauge’s black background and lights up in low-light conditions.
• Not only does a tick mark indicate the last quarter of the tank capacity, but an easily recognizable red arc highlights the quarter tank in the fuel gauge.
• Once the fuel level drops below one eighth of a tank, an amber fuel light illuminates. The universal fuel-pump icon reinforces just what the light means.

In addition, if the fuel level drops critically low, the odometer changes from total miles traveled to miles traveled in a low-fuel condition. Getting this information quickly is critical, especially when riding on a lonely stretch of unfamiliar country road at dusk.

Knowing How Far You’ve Gone

On the Breva, the rider uses a toggle button called the SET Button on the left grip both to move through menus and to select an item. Located at a natural position under the rider’s left forefinger, this button lets the rider see details on the two tripometers, as well as lap timers and the battery voltage. When the bike is not running, the lap timer menu lets the rider edit settings such as date, time, mph or km, and other customization features. It also allows access to the advanced features such as diagnosis and code reset. Figure 5 shows this multifunctional display.

The architecture of the tripometers provides two viewing areas for each tripometer: total miles traveled on this trip, along with specific data, so while you can’t toggle the number-of-miles display, you can toggle the other information, as shown in Figure 6.

So, while riding, motorcyclists can monitor distance, fuel, speed, and time. The tripometer’s information design also constrains its usage: The display of miles traveled is larger than that of other details and appears in a light-on-dark design, forcing riders to stop in order to view and analyze the other information. Doing otherwise would require riders to change their locus of attention from the road to the smaller display, and the design’s intent was to constrain them from doing that. By making the trip data smaller, the designers hoped to increase road safety, assuming riders would view trip information while stopped.

However, that’s not how riders ride. Almost always, they want to keep going. And while on the move, they expect to view the information that’s available. Often they’ll take their eyes off the road to focus on the current fuel consumption—for example, to see how throttle management affects miles or kilometers per gallon or liter.

Another interface anomaly exists on the Breva’s left-grip controls. By convention, as  shown in Figure 7, motorcycles incorporate their turn-signal controls in the middle of the grip. Underneath them, there’s usually a horn button. Often, at the top of the control, there’s a headlight-flashing button.

Moto Guzzi decided to do something different. In their design, the horn button is in the middle of the grip, while the turn signals are below, as Figure 8 shows.

Unfortunately, this design approach not only violates a recognized motorcycle convention, but can lead to a dangerous situation. Almost all Guzzisti started riding on other bikes, and many own several different brands. When they ride a modern Guzzi, however, they run into this anomaly. I’ve read several anecdotes of folks who’ve tried to honk their horns at someone pulling out in front of them, only to activate a turn signal. Others write about scaring drivers or pedestrians when all the rider wanted to do was activate a turn signal, but instead hit the horn.

Because the horn is a safety device whose use usually occurs in moments of great stress, perhaps even some panic, and often criticality, its location should be as close as possible to the rider’s left thumb. However, the Breva and other newer Guzzis violate Fitts’s law by having the horn in the middle of their left-hand grip controls. Riders must move their thumbs more than twice as far to press the horn as to press the turn signals, as Figure 9 indicates.

So Does Guzzi Get UX?

To a large degree, absolutely. From the standpoints of both design and feedback, they achieve high marks. Moto Guzzi’s devotion to visual and visceral design enhances brand loyalty among its small number of fiercely loyal riders.

However, some of their interaction models seem to result from unfortunate compromises between the interaction designer and the industrial designer. For example, the SET button not only lets riders scroll through tripometers and menus, it also clears the tripometer. Hold the button down just a little bit too long and your data for the past 200 miles resets to zero. Also, when riders are using the menus, the SET button both moves through the menus and chooses a highlighted item. This kind of approach to multimodal functionality not only can create frustration—as it has when I’ve accidentally zeroed out my miles traveled on a tank of gas—it can cause confusion as well.

There’s a danger of regression in motorcycle design, too. The 2008 dashboards eliminate the red paint that indicates the last quarter tank of fuel, making motorcyclists rely on more cognitive processing to know that fuel’s low. They’ve also eliminated the red mark at the top end of the tachometer, relying instead on a flashing red light that indicates the engine is beyond its recommended operating limits.

Also, instead of greeting the rider with the bike’s model name—Breva, Griso, Norge, or Breva Sport—Guzzi now provides just the generic Moto Guzzi and its eagle logo on the startup screen. While this is just a small issue, it does degrade brand identification to a degree.

All in all, though, the design decisions that both industrial designers and interaction designers have made on the Breva provide an enhanced experience for the rider—that is, for me, as you can see in Figure 10. 

References

Few, Stephen. Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data. O’Reilly Media, Inc.: Sebastopol, CA, 2006.

Pierson, Melissa Holbrook. The Perfect Vehicle: What it Is About Motorcycles. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc: New York, 1997.

Saffer, Dan. “It’s Not Just a Container, It’s Not Just a Screen.” Adaptive Path Blog. Retrieved on January 1, 2008.