Subaru

Subaru is an automotive brand synonymous with driver safety. But the Outback's infotainment system asks the driver to do too much while already in motion. Controls sit buried three and four layers deep, core functions like climate and audio rely on drag dials and scroll menus that demand a steady hand and a long look, and duplicate buttons compete for the same task. From the driver's seat, the interface reads as confusing and distracting. This redesign draws a hard line: what a driver needs at a glance stays on the surface, and everything else waits until the car is parked.

The redesign runs on evidence from task-based usability testing: real users attempting real jobs, from calling a contact to turning a disabled safety feature back on. The testing exposed the failures directly. Drivers dug through layers of menus to reach a single control, rejected the drag dials as too risky to use in motion, and misread which setting governed what. Each finding drove a decision. Research was also backed by an audit of the existing interface and a benchmark against Tesla, Porsche, Ford, and Lexus.

In the redesigned UI, a sticky navigation bar replaces the home-and-back loop, so drivers move between functions without starting over. Climate is rebuilt around two clear dials, retiring the drag inputs testing had flagged. A customizable home screen surfaces frequent actions, and settings are consolidated under visual icons with a search field. A type and color system tuned for contrast and legibility carries all of it, so the interface reads at a glance and still reads as Subaru.