DRIVER ASSISTANCE CONTROL AND HUMAN AUTOMATION INTERFACE DESIGN

Testing whether car dashboards can change people's behavior in an energy-efficient way

Sponsored Project | Scenario Building | Interface Design | Animation

SAUVVI is a project funded by IIT WISER cross-disciplinary seed funding grant that aims to explore, create, and test limited instructional cues visually presented on the display of such semi-autonomous vehicles. We focused two fundamental driver actions: speed acceleration/deceleration and lane change.

My Role

Visual Interface
Prototyping
Scenario Building
User Testing Screener

Team

Subin Kim
Yun Yang
Kie Ichikawa
Noah Keppers
Shin Kuwahara

Duration

January - May 2020 (14 weeks)

Process

Our team had time to talk about our thoughts on how we are envisioning future semi-autonomous driving and the instrument cluster we currently use.

By analyzing the current car UI, we explored what kind of actions people are induced by the UI, and investigated how sustainability is applied in various industries.

We narrowed down to three visual interface concepts based on visual attributes of perceptible, understandable, believable, familiar, actionable, and resonate, and developed and refined the design continuously.

It was a process of thinking about scenarios in which these three concepts could be tested. Factors affecting driving according to highway and city mode were different.

Before the test, we created a physical model of the inside of the car and created an environment where we could test it on real users. Afterwards, by applying the visual interface and scenarios to the screen, we prepared for user testing.

We recruited talent through SNS, IIT news, and flyers. We sent the screener form, listened to responses, and selected the suitable participants. However, due to the pandemic, this test is being delayed, but it is still an ongoing project.

Identifying Context

How the display of instructional information can communicate the actions the car requires from the driver to be energy efficient?

Semi-autonomous vehicles assume a relationship between the car and the driver where the driver is still required to take some action while the car can take on a multitude of tasks. Moreover, in a driving context where the goal is energy efficiency, the specifics of the driver response become important.

Industry Research

01 Envision future UI

02 Explore car industry

As a first step, we envisioned how the future car interface looks like and what non-driving focused areas can the driver engage in.

we researched various types of instrument clusters, console displays, and other UI components and analyze them by car makers and design features. Based on what our team found, we categorized them into Sporty, Luxury, and Family.

03 Explore how speed and lane change can be energy efficiency considered

04 Explore concept of sustainability

Then we explored how people can do things for energy efficiency through acceleration and deceleration behavior and the way they change lanes while driving. Then found many different ways to visualize the information such as using metaphor, graph, contrast color, or providing a reward system.

We diverged our topic again and looked at non-driving areas of life to check how the concept of sustainability is communicated in the world and what they are referencing.

Visual Interface & Prototyping

The area of interest for our exploration was how to elicit energy-efficient behaviors through messaging in the interfaces, and possibly extending them to relate to efforts in sustainability. To test it, we wanted to maximize the range of design exploration. Taking a thematic exploration approach, we pursued three directions: focus on message, focus on coaching in the form of gamification, and focus on sustainability messaging related to tire pollution.

THEME 1: Direct Messaging

This theme, as the name implies, is the most direct in terms of messaging. This is done by several elements of the interface.

Instruction to accelerate

Speed change:
‍1) Simple text message to either increase or decrease, with the desired speed. 2) Green desired target arc on the outer edge of the central circle. This dynamically changes based on the speed limit. 3) Orange arcs with arrows indicate the action (increase/decrease), the length of the arc shows the difference between current speed and desired speed.

Blinking arrows indicate safe lane change

Lane change:
‍The driver’s car occupies the central lane in the lane orientation portion of the interface. Flashing arrows instruct the driver to make the lane change if you approach a car ahead, the goal is to maintain a steady speed.

Swing gauge indicates consumption or generation of power

Eco-coaching:
‍The swing gauge to the left of the speedometer signals to the driver when power is being consumed or generated depending on the driving behavior. Ideally, over time the driver will learn to reduce aggressive driving behavior to maintain the level at neutral or generate.

THEME 2: Gamification

The second theme borrows visual cues from existing displays in the auto industry or video games. This mode of display uses a more abstract form of representation and metaphors, borrowing known symbols and concepts, rather than starting from scratch.

The static speed needle is in the green optimal speed range. The entire speedometer background glows green conveying to the drive to hold the current speed

Red band indicates outside of desired speed range, prompting driver to slow down

The green highlighted lane with the leaf icon signals to change lanes safely and efficiently.

Speed change:
‍The interface’s central portion features the speedometer. Unlike a conventional speed gauge where the needle moves according to the vehicle speed, this approach shows a static red vertical needle. Background is a separate plane with a wide colored band rotating. The band displays a green wedge which is the desired speed range. The goal is to have the red needle within this range.

Eco-coaching:
The left corner of the interface displays a traditional swing gauge, informing the driver whether she is maintaining an ‘eco’ mode, charging or consuming power. The second method is to observe the Anticipation and Acceleration gauges that flank the speedometer. High scores in either mean that the driver is driving in an ecological manner. The gauge is translating the braking and accelerating behavior, as well as communicating that in terms of positive performance scores so that perceptually, it is easier for the driver to understand that a high level of both is desired.

THEME 3: Pollution Warning Message

While providing speed and eco-coaching similarly, the third theme attempts to amplify the energy message to convey a more sustainable intent in its design. The focus here is to bring attention to the creation of tire pollution the actual driving is causing. Environmentally, tire wear generates participles that can spill over into waterways, ending up in animals, leading to their death.

Simple arrows to the left of the current speed convey either increase or decrease speed.

The right portion of the panel displays warnings of tire wear pollution when braking or acceleration is aggressive.

The left portion displays three tire variables. 1) tire pressure, 2) tire tread depth, and 3) luggage load weight. These all contribute to tire wear and impact efficiency.

Speed change:
‍Placed in the top center portion of the instrument panel, the speedometer is coupled with a stack of arrows.

Speed change:
‍The goal in eco-coaching is to bring awareness to the driver and decrease ecological damage brought on by tire particles. These come in the form of maintaining optimal tire health (pressure and tread depth) as well as monitoring the load the car is carrying. In addition to the swing gauge, placed above the speedometer, a ‘too aggressive!’ message appears along with a ‘tire wear pollution’ and graphic in the right portion of the panel.

Scenario Building

A driver's behavior is clearly different depending on whether he is driving on a highway, in a city, or whether there is a traffic jam. We develop scenarios for the driving simulation that we feel will encourage the driving behavior that will prompt the use of the sustainability components in our visual interface.

Recruiting / Prototyping Testing

We promoted the prototype testing through flyer within IIT school, tech news, and SNS. To select qualified people among them, we asked about basic information such as driving license status, driving history and availability through a screener form. Although testing has been delayed due to the pandemic, I was able to get emails from many people saying they were interested.

Reflections & Next Steps

Pushing a concept to a live, working prototype forced us to think through design details that usually get lost in other fast-paced work. It made us stop and ask: What is going on behind the numbers we put on the dashboard? Are we encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors? This project produced effective and tangible outcomes because we were able to work from the strategic level through to discovery and validation.

The ultimate goal of the project was to conduct human subject testing to see which interface resonated best. But the pandemic squelched that part of the plan. Nevertheless, through both physical and digital creations, we brought to life what would have been theoretical thinking from the team. This allowed us to actuate ideas in the real world while also blending elements of virtual reality to test solutions.

As a further step, I imagined a world where the act of driving is no longer a concern. However, we still need to physically get to places. What would that world look like?