Bastian Pfleging

Investigating user needs for non-driving-related activities during automated driving

In this paper, we investigate which non-driving-related activities drivers want to perform while driving highly or fully automated. Beyond the available advanced driving assistance functions, we expect that highly automated driving will soon be available in production vehicles. While many technological aspects have been investigated, it is not yet clear (a) which activities the drivers want to perform once they do not have to steer or monitor their car any more and (b) which of those will be feasible. In contrast to prior (survey-based) research, we investigate the drivers needs for such activities by employing a combination of a web survey, in-situ observations, and an in-situ survey. Also, we have a look at the specific requirements of the European / German market in contrast to prior research conducted mostly for English-speaking countries. The findings indicate that besides traditional activities (talking to passengers, listening to music), daydreaming, writing text messages, eating and drinking, browsing the Internet, and calling are most wanted for highly automated driving. This shows the potential for mobile and ubiquitous multimedia applications in the car.

A Design Space to Support the Development of Windshield Applications for the Car

In this paper we present a design space for interactive windshield displays in vehicles and discuss how this design space can support designers in creating windshield applications for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. Our work is motivated by numerous examples in other HCI-related areas where seminal design space papers served as a valuable basis to evolve the respective field -- most notably mobile devices, automotive user interfaces, and interactive public displays. The presented design space is based on a comprehensive literature review. Furthermore we present a classification of 211 windshield applications, derived from a survey of research projects and commercial products as well as from focus groups. We showcase the utility of our work for designers of windshield applications through two scenarios. Overall, our design space can help building applications for diverse use cases. This includes apps inside and outside the car as well as applications for specific areas (fire fighters, police, ambulance).

SupportingTrust in Autonomous Driving

Autonomous cars will likely hit the market soon, but trust into such a technology is one of the big discussion points in the public debate. Drivers who have always been in complete control of their car are expected to willingly hand over control and blindly trust a technology that could kill them. We argue that trust in autonomous driving can be increased by means of a driver interface that visualizes the cars interpretation of the current situation and its corresponding actions. To verify this, we compared different visualizations in a user study, overlaid to a driving scene: (1) a chauffeur avatar, (2) a world in miniature, and (3) a display of the cars indicators as the baseline. The world in miniature visualization increased trust the most. The human-like chauffeur avatar can also increase trust, however, we did not find a significant difference between the chauffeur and the baseline.

HCI and Autonomous Vehicles: Contextual Experience Informs Design

The interaction between drivers and their cars will change significantly with the introduction of autonomous vehicles. The drivers role will shift towards a supervisory control of their autonomous vehicle. The eventual relief from the driving task enables a complete new area of research and practice in human-computer interaction and interaction design. In this one-day workshop, participants will explore the opportunities the design space of autonomous driving will bring to HCI researchers and designers. On the day before workshop participants are invited to visit (together with workshop organizers) Google Partnerplex and Stanford University. At Google participants will have the opportunity to explore Googles autonomous car simulator and might have the chance to experience one of the Google Cars (if available). At Stanford participants are invited to ride in a Wizard-of-Oz autonomous vehicle. Based on this first-hand experience we will discuss design approaches and prototype interaction systems during the next days workshop. The outcome of this workshop will be a set of concepts, interaction sketches, and low-fidelity paper prototypes that address constraints and potentials of driving in an autonomous car.

1st Workshop on Ethically Inspired User Interfaces for Automated Driving

On July 1st 2016, the first automated vehicle fatality became headline news [9] and caused a nationwide wave of concern. Now we have at least one situation in which a controlled automated vehicle system failed to detect a life threatening situation. The question still remains: How can an autonomous system make ethical decisions that involve human lives? Control negotiation strategies require prior encoding of ethical conventions into decision making algorithms, which is not at all an easy task -- especially considering that actually coming up with ethically sound decision strategies in the first place is often very difficult, even for human agents. This workshop seeks to provide a forum for experts across different backgrounds to voice and formalize the ethical aspects of automotive user interfaces in the context of automated driving. The goal is to derive working principles that will guide shared decision-making between human drivers and their automated vehicles.

The car as an environment for mobile devices

The objective of this tutorial is to provide MobileHCI newcomers to the domain of automotive user interfaces (AutomotiveUI) with an introduction and overview of the field. The tutorial will introduce the specifics and challenges of in-vehicle user interfaces that set this field apart from others. With a clear focus on the integration of mobile devices into the car, we will provide an overview of the specific requirements of AutomotiveUI, discuss the design of such interfaces, also with regard to standards and guidelines. We further outline how to evaluate interfaces in the car, discuss the challenges with upcoming automated driving and present trends and challenges in this domain.

The Effects of Situational Demands on Gaze, Speech and Gesture Input in the Vehicle

Various on-the-road situations can make additional demands on the driver that go beyond the basic demands of driving. Thereby, they influence the appropriateness of in-vehicle input modalities to operate secondary tasks in the car. In this work, we assess the specific impacts of situational demands on gaze, gesture and speech input regarding driving performance, interaction efficiency and subjective ratings. An experiment with 29 participants in a driving simulator revealed significant interactions between situational demands and the input modality on secondary task completion times, perceived suitability and cognitive workload. Impairments were greatest when the situational demand addressed the same sensory channel as the used input modality. This was reflected differently in objective and subjective data depending on the used input modality. With this work, we explore the performance of natural input modalities across different situations and thereby support interaction designers that plan to integrate these modalities in automotive interaction concepts.

Car Exterior Surface Displays: Exploration in a Real-World Context

Current changes in the automotive industry towards autonomous vehicles will spur wide ranging changes in the roles of cars in urban environments. When combined with advances in display technology, this creates potential for the outer surfaces of cars to act as public displays. We present a real-world in context study, where participants ideated on a variety of different types of informative content, displayed on or around vehicles. Our study approach utilized handheld projection to create visualization experiences suggestive of the capabilities of future display technologies. The salient findings show that ideas related to the car and the driving function, such as parking, warning pedestrians and changing the vehicles aesthetic appearance, were appreciated. In contrast, ideas where the vehicle formed part of a smart urban infrastructure, such as guiding pedestrians or acting as a public display caused diverse opinions. In particular, concepts where personalized content was shown were disliked for reasons related to privacy and feeling like big brother is watching.

A design space for conversational in-vehicle information systems

In this paper we chart a design space for conversational in-vehicle information systems (IVIS). Our work is motivated by the proliferation of speech interfaces in our everyday life, which have already found their way into consumer electronics and will most likely become pervasive in future cars. Our design space is based on expert interviews as well as a comprehensive literature review. We present five core dimensions - assistant, position, dialog design, system capabilities, and driver state - and show in an initial study how these dimensions affect the design of a prototypical IVIS. Design spaces have paved the way for much of the work done in HCI including but not limited to areas such as input and pointing devices, smart phones, displays, and automotive UIs. In a similar way, we expect our design space to aid practitioners in designing future IVIS but also researchers as they explore this young area of research.

A Design Space for External Displays on Cars

The exterior surfaces of cars provide so far unutilized opportunities for information display. The exploitation of this space is enabled by current advances in display technologies combined with increased sensor integration, computing power, and connectivity in vehicles. With this motivation, we present a framework, mapping the design space for external vehicle displays. The audience for the displayed information may be other road users, pedestrians, or autonomous systems. This design direction is particularly interesting in the future, as the current direction towards driverless vehicles may be an enabler for increased separation, redesign, and repurposing of vehicle interior and exterior surfaces.