Designing the Digital Cockpit for a New Generation of MAN Trucks
3 min read · 734 words
Led UX concept and cross-series design for MAN Truck & Bus SE's new generation digital driver dashboard, from concept through software implementation.
Every figure and quote in this case study was supplied by its author. None were generated.
The Challenge
MAN Truck & Bus SE was developing an entirely new truck generation and needed a coherent UX and UI concept for the digital driver dashboard at its core. The scope was substantial: the instrument cluster, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving features, vehicle error messages, and a companion Driver App all had to work as a unified experience rather than a collection of separate screens.
MAN needed someone who could hold UX direction across all of these surfaces simultaneously, translate complex functional requirements into clear driver-facing concepts, and shepherd those concepts through to software implementation without losing coherence along the way.
The challenge was not simply visual. A commercial truck driver's dashboard is a safety-critical environment where information hierarchy, response to alerts, and the legibility of assistance system feedback directly affect road safety and operational performance. Getting that wrong is not an option — and getting it right requires alignment across software, hardware, function development, and sales, all of whom have competing constraints and priorities.
Key Decisions
- 01
Establishing a Single Cross-Series UX Lead Role
Rather than allowing each system — instrument cluster, ADAS, error messages, Driver App — to develop its own UX logic independently, a single cross-series UX lead position was established to own the overall concept. This decision traded short-term flexibility (individual teams moving faster in isolation) for long-term consistency: every surface, every interaction pattern, and every piece of driver communication would be governed by the same design logic. In a safety-critical context, fragmentation is not a style problem — it is a risk.
- 02
Coordinating Concept Development Directly Across All Stakeholder Groups
Concept development was conducted in close coordination with the software team, management, function development, and sales, rather than designing in isolation and presenting outputs for sign-off. This approach added friction to the design process but eliminated the larger friction of late-stage misalignment — where a concept that works for the driver conflicts with what the software can actually implement, or what the sales team has already committed to customers. Decisions made early in coordination are cheaper to make than reversals made late in development.
- 03
Treating Error Messages and ADAS Displays as UX Problems, Not Engineering Outputs
Vehicle error messages and driver assistance system displays are frequently treated as functional outputs — engineering decides what information must be shown, and it is displayed as-is. Here, these were approached as genuine UX problems: what does the driver need to understand, how quickly, and in what order? This meant taking responsibility for information hierarchy and language in contexts where the stakes of misinterpretation are high, and pushing back where raw system output would have produced driver-facing complexity rather than clarity.
- 04
Maintaining Design Authority Through to Software Implementation
The role extended beyond concept handoff to include coordination of software implementation and supplier support. This decision was deliberate: UX concepts that are fully handed over at the point of documentation frequently degrade during implementation as engineering constraints are resolved without design input. Maintaining involvement through implementation preserved the integrity of the original concept at the point where it most often gets compromised. Test
The Solution
The delivered work was a comprehensive UX and UI concept for the digital driver dashboard of the new MAN truck generation, covering the full digital instrument cluster, ADAS and autonomous driving feature displays, vehicle error messaging, and the Driver App. Alongside the design work itself, the engagement produced structured documentation supporting both internal stakeholders and external software suppliers, and included active coordination through to the implementation phase to ensure the concept reached production intact.
The work spanned the full design and delivery lifecycle — from early concept development and stakeholder alignment through to supplier coordination — with a single UX lead maintaining conceptual ownership throughout.
The Results
The digital driver dashboard was successfully delivered as part of the new MAN truck generation launch in 2020. The work was recognised with a Red Dot Design Award, one of the most established international design honours in the industry — a result that reflects both the quality of the visual execution and the underlying soundness of the UX concept it expressed.
The cross-series approach produced a dashboard experience with coherent interaction patterns across all driver-facing surfaces, supporting both experienced truck drivers and those encountering MAN's new ADAS and autonomous driving features for the first time.