[F1] Why F1's broadcast screen is the "world's best dashboard UI"

This is another long post. Please bear with me...

It is a complete occupational hazard, but even when I watch F1 broadcasts, I find myself thinking, "The information design on this screen is well done." When you work on web layouts, you inevitably become concerned about where information is placed on the screen.

I started watching F1 in 1987. It was the year Fuji TV began its broadcasts, and the Honda Turbo era was in full swing. Since then, about 40 years have passed. Before I knew it, I had been watching the "evolution of the broadcast screen" as much as the races themselves.

And I assert that the current F1 broadcast screen is the world's best dashboard UI. Today, I will write about that from a director's perspective.

First, there was "nothing" on the screen in 1987.

Just in case, let's start with the old days. The broadcast screen when I started watching had surprisingly little information, now that I think about it. It was good if the standings and lap count were in the corner of the screen, but you didn't know the time gaps or the tire status. Even when a pit stop started, the screen told you nothing about how many seconds it took or what it meant for the strategy. If the camera cut away, you would even lose track of what position the car currently on screen was in.

So how did we understand the race back then? Through the play-by-play and commentary. The play-by-play by Ichiro Furutachi, who symbolized that era of enthusiasm. Words like "Prince of Speed" and "Wild Warrior" played the role of all the text overlays and graphics we have today. In other words, it was an era where information design was done through "audio" rather than the "screen." Late at night, while supplementing the meager information on the CRT monitor with the announcer's words, I, as a child, was desperately trying to piece together the overall picture of the race in my head.

Forty years have passed since then. Today's broadcast screen displays everything in real-time: the standings of all cars, time gaps, tire types and lap counts, team radio, pit strategy predictions, and even the success probability of an overtake. These 40 years are a history of the evolution of motorsport, and at the same time, a history of the evolution of "information design on screen." And I have been observing this evolution at a fixed point for almost every race. It is, in itself, a rather rare user study.

The tower on the far left is "always-on navigation"

The most important part of the current broadcast screen is the standings displayed vertically on the far left of the screen. Commonly known as the timing tower. The three-letter abbreviations for all drivers are lined up in order of their position and stay there throughout the race. When positions change, they slide smoothly with an animation, and the display changes when they enter the pits.

This is what we call global navigation on the web, and a "current location indicator" within a site. No matter which car the camera is showing, if you look at the tower, you can instantly tell which battle in the overall field you are watching. No matter how dizzyingly the content (video) switches, the structure (standings) is always fixed to the far left.

We do the same thing in site production. No matter how diverse the content of a page is, the navigation and current location display are never moved. This is so that users do not lose track of "where they are on the site." Breadcrumb lists and current indicators in global navigation all share this philosophy.

Think about it. A video where 22 cars are racing around at 300 km/h and the camera cuts every few seconds is probably the "easiest content to get lost in" in the world. A single thin tower on the far left supports that. When I draw wireframes for corporate sites, I always think about that tower in the back of my mind. No matter how much information a page has, if it has a single backbone, people won't get lost.

The graphic above the halo is a "tooltip"

Along with the tower, what I am partial to is the graphic that overlays the onboard footage. When it cuts to the driver's-eye camera, information such as the driver's name, position, and speed is smoothly overlaid on the halo part that protects the cockpit.

This is truly excellent. The information is placed not in the corner of the screen, but "right next to what you are watching." Viewers can receive the video and information simultaneously without moving their eyes much.

In web terms, this is a tooltip or inline supplementary display. Instead of sending the user to a separate page for a term definition, it pops up right where the mouse is hovered. Instead of making the user compare graph values with a legend, it displays them right above the point. The principle that information is strongest when placed where it is needed is being practiced on top of 300 km/h footage.

Moreover, that graphic never gets in the way of the video. It is translucent, small, and yet readable. The hierarchy that the content is the protagonist and the information is the accessory is never broken. This is a screen I want people who make sites cluttered with banners where you can't tell where the main text is to watch while sitting upright.

Information should not be "left out"

Another thing I admire is the skill in how information is brought in and out.

Detailed time differences between cars are only displayed on screen when a battle is close. A list of tire usage history is inserted when pit strategy becomes the focus. Team radio is played only at the moment drama unfolds. Comparisons of corner entry speeds appear specifically during qualifying attack laps.

Technically, it should be possible to display all information at all times. After all, the data is all there. But they don't do that. They only put information on the screen that is necessary in the current context, and pull it back as soon as it is no longer needed. That is why the screen does not become cluttered despite the amount of information.

In the web world, this is called progressive disclosure. It is a design philosophy that does not show everything from the beginning, but discloses information in stages according to the user's situation and depth of interest. On the BtoB manufacturing product pages I usually create, I fold detailed specification tables behind a "See More" link, and place only the information necessary for selecting a model number on the first screen. Showing everything and communicating everything are completely different things.

The F1 broadcast screen has been doing this principle on a single screen, and in a live broadcast where there is no room for re-editing, for two hours straight. Honestly, I have a bit of respect for it.

F1 conducted a "user test of words"

And this season, a truly interesting event has been added to the story of this screen.

As you know, the new regulations for 2026 have significantly changed the mechanism for overtaking support. DRS, which opens the rear wing to reduce air resistance, has been abolished and replaced with a new system that temporarily boosts electric power. Initially, this feature was called "Manual Override Mode," but before its introduction, the FIA and F1 conducted terminology verification with a research group ranging from new fans to core fans, and simply changed the name to "Overtake."

The reason is brilliant. In the process of the research, it was found that even for the term DRS, which had been used for 15 years, more than 10% of fans could not immediately answer what it meant.

I think every web creator has experienced this. The phenomenon where words that the creators take for granted are not understood by users at all. I also often suggest that we should dare to use general terms on a site instead of product category abbreviations that are common sense within a client's company. A common language within a company is a code outside of it.

What F1 did was exactly a user test of labeling and an improvement of microcopy. The world's top motorsport, at the timing of one of the largest technical regulation revisions in history, seriously verified "whether the button name is understood or not." This fact alone is enough for me to eat three bowls of rice.

However, there is a decisive difference between television and the web

Now, I have been talking about how it is "the same as the web," but there is one decisive difference. In fact, this might be the main point.

Web users can operate it themselves. If they want to know, they can click to dig deeper, and if they are not interested, they can scroll past it. However, television viewers cannot do anything to the screen. The information displayed and its timing must be decided entirely by the sender.

In other words, the F1 broadcast screen is a "UI that the user cannot operate at all."

That is precisely why the sender reads the viewer's mind in advance. If the interval between two cars closes, they display the gap before the viewer thinks, "What's the time difference?" If the pit window approaches, they show the tire usage history before being asked. They place the answer on the screen half a step before the viewer's question arises.

Actually, I think this is an attitude that the web should learn. The moment you think, "Users can operate it themselves, so I can just put the information somewhere," the design becomes negligent. A site where you can find things if you look for them and a site where things are offered before you look for them are different things. The "anticipation" of the F1 broadcast, polished under the constraint of not being able to operate it, is often more user-centric than the web, which is supposed to be operable. Constraints sometimes sharpen design.

As someone who has been watching for 40 years

To summarize, the F1 broadcast screen guarantees your current location with a fixed tower, moves information in and out according to context, puts the words themselves to a user test, and anticipates the viewer's desires. It is doing almost everything that a good website should do in advance. Web creators looking for a model for dashboard UI might want to watch F1 on a Sunday night before looking at gallery sites for admin screens.

I want to tell myself in 1987, who was watching while supplementing the screen with no information only with the words of the live commentary. 40 years from now, you will be watching this screen as a "teaching material." And what's more, you will even be citing it in your work proposal materials.

And this weekend, I find myself staring at the tower on the far left, ignoring the race again. Occupational disease, I suppose, will never be cured.