Framing the opportunities of robotics in meaningful autonomous vehicle experiences

Abstract

Vehicle automation will increasingly release car drivers from driving tasks, allowing them to engage in previously inconceivable activities. Experiential components are therefore expected to become central in human automotive mobility. In this context, the design of future in-vehicle experiences is a research gap to still discover, that concerns both academia and industry alike.

This graduation project explored the opportunities of using robotics and AI technology for the provision of meaningful autonomous in-vehicle experiences. In that aim, different user interfaces (UIs) were analyzed, as a way to visualize and study different user-technology interactions. The outcomes of the research comprise recommendations about promising scenarios that could be included in autonomous vehicles as well as insights into how different UIs shape user experiences differently.

The project first reviewed prior academic work on the topics of fundamental needs (from positive design), vehicle automation, user experience design, robotics, AI, and user interfaces. A research approach was proposed based on that analysis; because robotics and AI present ample capabilities, in-vehicle scenarios should be designed first, to later define (through UIs) the role that technology should have in those scenarios. These are the research questions that were proposed:

1. What in-vehicle scenarios can be designed to support
fundamental needs?
• How do different user interfaces enable those use cases?
• How do different types of user interfaces affect the in-vehicle user experiences?

2. What are the most promising scenario and user interface
combinations?

To answer those questions, a co-creative workshop was designed, with the aim of collecting user needs and perceptions as data. The participants were asked to envision future needs in AVs, based on the typology of 13 fundamental needs, as well as to design meaningful scenarios that would fulfill them. Through a questionnaire, they voted for the most promising scenarios (i.e., most attractive and most innovative scenarios). The workshop was conducted three times and a total of 18 participants were recruited.

The preliminary results from the workshop were 13 meaningful scenarios, each of them aimed at fulfilling one fundamental need; additionally, those scenarios were adapted to ambient, graphical, and tangible UIs. Besides, promising UI and scenario combinations were identified, according to the participant‘s perspective. Finally, insights were clustered on how different UIs shape the in-vehicle user experience. Those outcomes were contrasted and enriched in validation sessions, where a total of six field experts contributed. The experts brought in insights from the HCI, future mobility, and positive design fields.

This research aims to contribute to both industrial and academic practices. First, fundamental needs and sub-needs have been explored in the context of autonomous vehicles. Second, design directions and examples are offered for the development of meaningful in-vehicle experiences. Additionally, conclusions on how users perceive tangible, graphical, and ambient UIs are given, which could be used as guidelines for designing interactions. Finally, insights are offered about how end-users perceived innovations, as well as how innovative and attractive solutions are differently framed.

Finally, additional research paths were revealed through the study, that future research may consider. For instance, activity-based fundamental need hierarchies could vary across different demographic groups. Apart from that, further work could be done in the classification of the UIs, as well as in mapping out the interactions that they enabled. Finally, in-vehicle scenarios could be related to the concept of ’innovation adoption’ to study what solutions to develop further in the coming years.