Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications

Skinning as a method for differentiating
in-car infotainment systems
Simon Gerlach
HMI/Cluster, Switches
Volkswagen AG
PO Box 1148, D-38436 Wolfsburg, Germany
+49 5361 9-16989
ABSTRACT
In order to efficiently develop a software product family with
products that are recognizable and distinguishable by the
customer, one can modify the user-interface of a product’s
existing base-software (skinning). This paper introduces and
defines the skinning technique and differentiates it from other
practices. The required working steps as well as examples of
supporting tools are presented. Possible uses of skinning for incar
infotainment systems are discussed. Finally, methods for
applying skinning in different HMI-development methodologies
are introduced and compared with one another.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
D.2.11 [Software Engineering]: Software Architectures –
domain-specific architectures, patterns; D.2.13 [Software
Engineering]: Reusable Software – domain engineering; D.2.11
[Software Engineering]: Miscellaneous – reusable software; J.7
[Computer Applications]: Computers in other systems –
consumer products.
General Terms
Management, Design, Economics, Human Factors.
Keywords
HMI, infotainment system, automotive, product lines, skinning,
branding.
1. BACKGROUND
Car passengers and drivers interact with the infotainment system
of their car every day. Therefore, it is natural that they associate
the look-and-feel of the system’s user interface (HMI) with the
vehicle’s brand. As a consequence, the HMI needs to convey
important customer values such as Corporate Identity and
Corporate Design [9]. It also has to be in accordance with the
car’s interior design [11] and allow for differentiation from
competitors [2].
Nowadays, the automotive industry is dominated by a number of
companies that own multiple brands [9]. The cars they offer are
built based on platforms that are used for multiple models and
brands in order to reduce development and production costs.
However, to make the cars distinguishable from each other the
part that is visible to the customer has to be developed
individually [10] 1 .
Copyright held by author(s).
AutomotiveUI’11, November 29-December 2, 2011, Salzburg, Austria.
Adjunct Proceedings.
simon.gerlach@volkswagen.de
This applies equally for the infotainment systems that are built
based on shared platforms, too. In order to offer systems with
brand- or model-specific HMIs, development has to be handled
efficiently. The individual effort has to be minimized by reusing
large portions of existing software and thereby avoiding multiple
implementations - analogous to the approach taken for the overall
vehicle. This includes changing the look-and-feel of existing
software by applying appropriate modifications to the parts that
are visible to the user, which is referred to as skinning.
When developing a set of software products, skinning is a useful
technique to use for creating products with different look-andfeel.
This is essential in order to attain a strong product
differentiation and allow customers to perceive and relate to each
individual member or its brand. This is necessary when multiple
companies cooperate in the development of a system or share a
common platform, and the final product is to be marketed using
different brand names. It is also required when software system
families are created by multi-brand companies that are common in
the automotive industry.
A similar situation exists in the domain of mobile phones:
companies want to have a consistent brand-specific look-and-feel
for all of the products in their portfolio. However, these products
may be built based on different supplier platforms (e.g., Android
and Windows Mobile). At the same time, a single supplier
platform can be used by multiple companies.
The following chapter explains how skinning can be used in the
development of in-car infotainment systems. Later on, the paper
discusses the working steps and technical solutions to apply
skinning. Finally, an example of a tool supporting the skinning
process is presented.
2. POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS
In the development of modern infotainment systems, the need for
different ranges of functionality and individualized user-interfaces
dictates that multiple software variants are to be created.
Programming each of them from scratch is not reasonable.
Instead, the software variants can be created using product line
approaches [4] that allow minimizing the individual efforts. Such
approaches build software based on reusable components, which
only need to be developed once. Multi staged derivation processes
can be applied in order to build large numbers of such software
variants. An example of this is shown in Figure 1 and is explained
below.
1 The same strategy is also applied in other consumer products
such as portable navigation devices, dishwashers or hi-fi
systems, where the same internal hardware is used in products
with different casing and user interface.