MBUX: a new generation infotainment platform
MBUX represents the first end-to-end in-house designed and implemented infotainment in the modern era for Daimler. Starting as an incubation effort in Silicon Valley (Mercedes-Benz R&D, North America) to final production in Sindelfingen Germany, I was the creative leader of the project. The design teams eventually spanned three groups across the globe: HMI Design in Sindelfingen, 3D and Voice UI in Mountain View, and production design in Boblingen. At CES 2018, MBUX was launched starting with the A-Class. Today it still regarded as one of the best infotainment system on the market.
Role: Creative Director
Launch: Jan 9, 2018 (CES)
Contribution: Project lead from incubation in Silicon Valley to production development in Germany.
Recognition: 2019 Edmunds Tech Driven Award
Platform for the future
With dual steering wheel controls, a center console touchpad, and a touch-enabled center screen, MBUX acted as a bridge between the haptic experience of previous generations while setting a new foundation for a touch-only future. As the first in-house system, MBUX also enabled code re-usability, allowing the Mercedes-Benz to iterate on the user experience with every new vehicle.
“In the end, MBUX is that rarest of beasts: A first-party infotainment system that’s exciting, powerful and extremely well-crafted from a technology perspective. If you’d have told me a week ago that one of my favorite things from CES would be an automaker’s infotainment software, I’d have laughed, but here we are.”
Modern development process
Beyond just launching a new platform, the success of MBUX was in the transformation of the design to development process. For a metal-bending company, moving towards an agile, software-first driven process was the biggest challenge. We demonstrated how designing in code with atomic design principles unlocked iterative development.
3D Real-TIME Rendering
Mercedes-Benz is a car company after all, and meticulous care was put into the real-time rendering of the vehicles. The Silicon Valley team was responsible for creating the modeling and shading pipeline that enabled this experience. This simple piece of UI encapsulated the global nature of this platform—pulling together all the capabilities and functions of Daimler’s global reach.