Dagmar Kern

Design space for driver-based automotive user interfaces

Over the last 100 years it has become much easier to operate a car. However in recent years the number of functions a user can control while driving has greatly increased. Infotainment, entertainment and comfort systems as well as driver assistance contribute to this trend. Interaction with these systems plays an important role, as on one hand this can improve the user experience while driving but on the other hand it may distract from the primary task of driving. User interfaces in cars differ regarding the number of input and output devices and their placement in the car to a great extent. In this paper, we introduce a first design space for driver-based automotive user interfaces that allows a comprehensive description of input and output devices in a car with regard to placement and modality. This design space is intended to provide a basis for analyzing and discussing different user interface arrangements in cars, to compare alternative user interface setups, and to identify new opportunities for interaction and placement of controls. We present a graphical representation of the design space and discuss its usage in detail based on several examples. To assess the completeness of the proposed design space we used it to classify and compare user interfaces from more than 100 cars shown at IAA2007, cars from the BMW museum, and from the A2Mac1 image database.

Enhancing Navigation Information with Tactile Output Embedded into the Steering Wheel

Navigation systems are in common use by drivers and typically present information using either audio or visual representations. However, there are many pressures on the drivers cognitive systems in a car and navigational systems can add to this complexity. In this paper, we present two studies which investigated how vibro-tactile representations of navigational information, might be presented to the driver via the steering wheel to ameliorate this problem. Our results show that adding tactile information to existing audio, or particularly visual representations, can improve both driving performance and experience.

Gazemarks: gaze-based visual placeholders to ease attention switching

Many tasks require attention switching. For example, searching for information on one sheet of paper and then entering this information onto another one. With paper we see that people use fingers or objects as placeholders. Using these simple aids, the process of switching attention between displays can be simplified and speeded up. With large or multiple visual displays we have many tasks where both attention areas are on the screen and where using a finger as a placeholder is not suitable. One way users deal with this is to use the mouse and highlight their current focus. However, this also has its limitations -- in particular in environments where there is no pointing device. Our approach is to utilize the users gaze position to provide a visual placeholder. The last area where a user fixated on the screen (before moving their attention away) is highlighted; we call this visual reminder a Gazemark. Gazemarks ease orientation and the resumption of the interrupted task when coming back to this display. In this paper we report on a study where the effectiveness of using Gazemarks was investigated, in particular we show how they can ease attention switching. Our results show faster completion times for a resumed simple visual search task when using this technique. The paper analyzes relevant parameters for the implementation of Gazemarks and discusses some further application areas for this approach.

Enabling micro-entertainment in vehicles based on context information

People spend a significant amount of time in their cars (US: 86 minutes/day, Europe: 43 minutes/day) while commuting, shopping, or traveling. Hence, the variety of entertainment in the car increases, and many vehicles are already equipped with displays, allowing for watching news, videos, accessing the Internet, or playing games. At the same time, the urbanization caused a massive increase of traffic volume, which led to people spending an ever-increasing amount of their time in front of red traffic lights. An observation of the prevailing forms of entertainment in the car reveals that content such as text, videos, or games are often a mere adaptation of content produced for television, public displays, PCs, or mobile phones and do not adapt to the situation in the car. In this paper we report on a web survey assessing which forms of entertainment and which types of content are considered to be useful for in-car entertainment by drivers. We then introduce an algorithm, which is capable of learning standing times in front of traffic lights based on GPS information only. This, on one hand, allows for providing content of appropriate length, on the other hand, for directing the attention of the driver back to-wards the street at the right time. Finally, we present a prototype implementation and a qualitative evaluation.

Making use of drivers' glances onto the screen for explicit gaze-based interaction

Interaction with communication and infotainment systems in the car is common while driving. Our research investigates modalities and techniques that enable interaction with interactive applications while driving without compromising safety. In this paper we present the results of an experiment where we use eye-gaze tracking in combination with a button on the steering wheel as explicit input substituting the interaction on the touch screen. This approach combines the advantages of direct interaction on visual displays without the drawbacks of touch screens. In particular the freedom of placement for the screen (even out of reach from the user) and that both hands remain on the steering wheel are the main advantages. The results show that this interaction modality is slightly slower and more distracting than a touch screen but it is significantly faster than automated speech interaction.

Writing to your car: handwritten text input while driving

For in-car navigation, information and entertainment systems, text input is increasingly important. We investigate handwriting as a text input modality and assess where to best position the input surface and how to provide feedback. For this purpose, we created different prototypes that allow text input on the steering wheel and in the central console, as well as visual feedback on the input surface and on the dashboard. The results of the study indicate that handwritten text input on the steering wheel is well-received by the users and that the visual feedback should be presented in the dashboard area or on the steering wheel. We also observed that the number of corrective actions and the remaining errors were significantly smaller (25% less) on the steering wheel than in the central console and that entering text while driving made people drive slower.

Driving Automotive User Interface Research

Cars offer an interesting but challenging microcosm for pervasive computing research and, in particular, for interaction with pervasive computing systems. Increasingly, researchers are looking at interactive applications in the car and investigating human-car interaction from a computer science—rather than an ergonomics or mechanical engineering—perspective. This article reports on the International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, wherein participants shared presentations on topics such as aesthetics, user interaction and distraction, safety, and driver monitoring.

Enhancing outdoor navigation systems through vibrotactile feedback

While driving many tasks compete for the attention of the user, mainly via the audio and visual channel. When designing systems depending upon providing feedback to users (e.g., navigation systems), it is a crucial prerequisite to minimize influence on and distraction from the driving task. This becomes even more important when designing systems for the use on motorbikes; space for output devices is scarce, as people are wearing helmets visual feedback is often difficult due to lighting conditions, and audio feedback is limited. In a first step we aimed at creating an understanding as to how information could be communicated in a meaningful way using vibrotactile signals. Therefore, we investigated suitable positions of actuators on the hand, appropriate length of the vibration stimulus, and different vibration patterns. We built a first prototype with 4 vibration actuators attached to the fingertips and asked 4 participants to test our prototype while driving. With this work we envision to lay the foundations for vibrotactile support in navigation systems.

A multi-touch enabled steering wheel: exploring the design space

Cars offer an increasing number of infotainment systems as well as comfort functions that can be controlled by the driver. With our research we investigate new interaction techniques that aim to make it easier to interact with these systems while driving. In contrast to the standard approach of combining all functions into hierarchical menus controlled by a multifunctional controller or a touch screen we suggest to utilize the space on the steering wheel as additional interaction surface. In this paper we show the design challenges that arise for multi-touch interaction on a steering wheel. In particular we investigate how to deal with input and output while driving and hence rotating the wheel. We describe the details of a functional prototype of a multi-touch steering wheel that is based on FTIR and a projector, which was built to explore experimentally the user experience created. In an initial study with 12 participants we show that the approach has a general utility and that people can use gestures for controlling applications intuitively but have difficulties to imagine gestures to select applications.

Shaping how advertisers see me: user views on implicit and explicit profile capture

Public electronic displays are increasingly used for advertising. In a drive to improve the effectiveness of such displays, advertisers and researchers are exploring the creation of systems that show adverts tailored to the context of the display or to the profile of the audience in close proximity to the display. In this paper we explore, through structured interviews with potential users in two European countries, reactions to the ideas of implicit and explicit generation of such profiles and relate these to more general user views on privacy and targeted advertising. The initial results suggest that users are prepared to trade off ease of use against increased levels of control over their data and are therefore more comfortable with an explicit system.