Augmented reality
Benjamin Mathe develops holistic approaches for human-machine interfaces
From an early age, Benjamin Mathe, 30, has had a keen interest in industrial design. “I’ve always liked to draw, design, construct,” says Benjamin, who has worked in Babenhausen, Germany as a user interface designer for three-and-a-half years now.
He first came to Continental as a student employee. Initially he studied material and product development, before completing a Master’s degree in Interface Design at an art college in Kiel. Now Benjamin works on the human-machine interface as part of an interdisciplinary team made up of ergonomists, business psychologists, designers, and software developers. He dives deep into virtual worlds, developing pioneering approaches to holistic human-machine interfaces. “Because we work in pre-development and are exploring the future, we have a lot of freedom,” says Benjamin – an aspect of his job which he particularly enjoys, emphasizing that it also includes the freedom to fail. “That’s really important,” he says. “Because you learn from your mistakes.”
At present he is working on the user interface design for an automated driving project. As a designer, Benjamin is interested in ergonomics, new methods of interaction, font sizes, lighting conditions, colors, and contrasts. “There are design rules to respect,” he says. But there is still a lot that has to be tried out, in simulators and demo vehicles. Personally he doesn’t find the idea of a virtual job unusual, because as he says: “I grew up in the era of digitalization,” Nevertheless, away from work he’s quite capable of relaxing in the real world by jogging and playing the drums.