Mapping Methodology For Automated Browsing Of Vehicular Human-Machine Interface Object Trees

This paper presents a decoupled solution for mapping and validating complex and dynamic user interfaces (UI). Creating unique and satisfying user experiences are becoming the focus of products whereas digital user interfaces are a big part of this delivery. This tendency is coming to complex real-time systems, thus, growing the need of a proper validation of digital UIs considering its intrinsic requirements and limitations. The previous framework that ran the touchscreen tests required changes in case of UI updates while the matrix-like structure proposed gives a correlation between all to all clickable objects thus mapping all possible pathways to the many different screens. This application was implemented according to the following steps: 1) Adjustment of the adjacency considering the method of interaction with the UI. 2) Implementation of the methods created to read the matrix structure. 3) Implementation of the interaction between the software library and the hardware unit under test. The test of the proposed approach was done through the mapping and validation of radio, automotive instrument panel and infotainment system electronic vehicle control units UIs. Hardware-in-the-loop was implemented with the technique through LabVIEW and Python. Hence the exposed, this paper delivers a decoupled mapping structure from the test program, making it possible to reuse the same algorithm for different user interfaces and browse all screens and all their possible pathways by taking pictures of these interfaces. The previous method employed would require a complete revisiting of the screens and pathways mapped by the test operator while the current structure allows changes to be made only in the specific pathways and screens that have been changed with UI updates. This HMI (Human-Machine Interface) mapping method improves test setup time by five times.