{"id":84309,"date":"2025-11-28T14:56:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T19:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=84309"},"modified":"2025-11-28T14:56:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T19:56:30","slug":"mini-circular-oled-ui-designworks-homage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=84309","title":{"rendered":"MINI\u2019s Circular OLED UI: The Hardest Homage Designworks Ever Made"},"content":{"rendered":"

When talking about brand heritage, MINI is a brand with a lot to lose. Almost everything about the original car comes in at nothing short of \u201ciconic,\u201d whether you\u2019re talking about the car\u2019s affable front fascia or the truly spartan interior prominently featuring circular gauges. It\u2019s the latter we\u2019re focused on today \u2014 in particular, how the early design impacted where the brand is today. Indeed, the circular OLED display found in modern MINIs is arguably the best homage yet to the original. But such simplicity is deceptively hard to get right, apparently. Matthew Potter, Director of Interaction Design at Designworks, and BMW\u2019s own Adrian van Hooydonk talked us through the process of how Designworks got everything just right.<\/p>\n

MINI Personality is Integral to Design<\/h3>\n

In the beginning stages of working out MINI\u2019s user interface (UI) for the round display, Designworks went \u201chog wild,\u201d according to Potter. Tons of three-dimensions shapes, tons of ribbons, and other ornamentations made for a display that was \u201ca lot of fun,\u201d but perhaps didn\u2019t provide the best user experience. \u201cWe really hit on the emotion there. But we have to balance that emotion with usability,\u201d Potter said. It was clear the round display was perhaps interesting enough \u2014 it was now time to simplify. \u201cWe really looked at simplifying, reducing the amount of information that users presented at once,\u201d Potter continued. \u201cJust think of the original meaning. Think of that little round dial in the middle,\u201d he said, referring of course to the original MINI interior.<\/p>\n

Adrian van Hooydonk<\/a> had insight, too. \u201cThis was done at the time when BMW was working on the curved display that you now know in all of our cars. We were looking at combining all the displays that we needed behind the steering wheel and in the in the central area,\u201d he said. \u201cFor MINI, we wanted something round in the central area.\u201d Over time, complication was further toned down, mostly in an effort to get closer and closer to the original MINI. Which is, as van Hooydonk astutely comments, \u201cincredibly hard to do.\u201d Particularly today!<\/p>\n

Hardware Meets Software<\/h3>\n

Once the shape and layout was finalized, things progressed quickly. \u201cWe were able to start producing a circular OLED we can start simplifying it even more,\u201d says Potter. Then, iDrive moved to an Android base, which opened more room for customizability. One hurdle was app integration. \u201cUsers want their apps, right?\u201d says Potter. He correctly observes that \u201cnobody makes a round phone,\u201d making smooth UI integration a potential roadblock. Furthermore, even after successful integration, MINI need to ensure it still \u201cfelt MINI,\u201d even with another company\u2019s app on the screen.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the MINI OLED display<\/a> is an example of how Designworks \u201cmakes the impossible possible,\u201d according to Potter. It isn\u2019t all marketing metaphor; after all, MINI is the only brand with a display like this. Whether or not it would fit the character of any other automaker, of course, is some matter for debate. Regardless, it\u2019s cool to have a little bit of insight into how the circular OLED evolved. And, perhaps more importantly, all the decisions that land an automaker on one aspect of car design.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When talking about brand heritage, MINI is a brand with a lot to lose. Almost everything about the original car comes in at nothing short of \u201ciconic,\u201d whether you\u2019re talking about the car\u2019s affable front fascia or the truly spartan interior prominently featuring circular gauges. It\u2019s the latter we\u2019re focused on today \u2014 in particular, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":84310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/84310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}