Whether commuting or on a road trip, your phone is always there while you drive, ready to interrupt your concentration and encourage distracted driving risks.
The overabundance of apps available to smart-phones and other hand-held device are a nest of colorful diversions.
Now there is a trend in app design focused on the driver and providing the opposite to the common scenario so far.
However, there are apps available to transform your Smartphone into Car Mode.
Their purpose could be described as providing information with easy visual clarity and offering an interface that relies on a minimum amount of attention and effort from the user.
Some of the key function for many of these kinds of apps are:
- Voice control
- Odometer/Speedometer/etc.
- Weather
- Music/Radio
- Google Maps Integration
- GPS Navigation
A key ingredient to ensure the quality of these apps is their layout design as displayed on your smart phone.
One of the biggest mistakes many of these apps make is that they cram too much information on a single screen.
Here’s a straightforward hint about finding a quality dashboard car mode app: if you can’t figure out quickly what’s displayed on the app’s screen, then it failed.
The point of these apps is to make things simple for you to glance at while you’re driving.
If there is too much happening at once, what’s the point of using such an app in the first place?
Another important ingredient is interface enhancement.
Usually, the enhancement is offered via two methods: voice activation and swipe controls/large buttons.
Again, what can cause these apps to fail in their purpose is an over-abundance of information on any given screen.
You cannot navigate through these apps if you cannot find what you’re looking for quickly.
After all, you’re driving your car while doing all this!
Voice activation solves many of these issues, but many times these features don’t function correctly and become more work than using your smart-phone normally, It always important to do your research before deciding on one of these kinds of apps.
Overall, dashboard car mode apps are a great idea and may provide a resource to increase your driving safety, instead creating unsafe disruptions.