Nicole Perterer

The Neglected Passenger—How Collaboration in the Car Fosters Driving Experience and Safety

When designing interfaces for a vehicle, the focus often lies on the driver. Since the driver always has a primary task (i.e., maneuvering the vehicle safely), interfaces for secondary tasks (e.g., entertainment systems) are designed to reduce distraction threats to a minimum. However, it is not always only the driver who is interacting with the vehicle; passengers also interact with the car. They may support the driver in the primary task (e.g., by providing navigation information) or take over secondary tasks (e.g., operating the climate control) in order to unburden the driver. Thus, we see a need for interfaces that foster the communication and collaboration between the driver and passengers but also among passengers themselves. Currently, such interfaces are usually neglected in automotive user interface research. Over the last years, we have conducted several studies focusing on communication and collaboration between drivers and passengers inside cars. Following an experience-centered approach, we started with ethnographically informed studies to gain a deeper knowledge on how drivers and passengers interact with each other inside a vehicle. Based on these insights we conceptualized and designed several prototypes that enabled collaboration between drivers and passengers. These prototypes were then studied in different studies both in a simulator setup, as well as, in real-traffic situations. In this chapter, we describe five of these research activities in more detail and present implications for designing interaction approaches that foster collaboration in the vehicle.

Safety through Collaboration: A New Challenge for Automotive Design

A high number of car accidents are caused as a result of excessive demands and distraction. Collaboration can support drivers, since other tasks, e.g., operating with the navigation system, can be taken over by a front-seat passenger. But how can we, as researchers and HCI designers, develop and design collaborative in-car systems that really address safety issues or reduce demands during driving? Based on findings from three ethnographic studies I draw attention on the car as a safety-critical environment, where collaboration may solve safety issues.

Enhancing Telephone Communication in the Vehicle Through Audio from the Headrest: A Comparison Study

The distraction potential of communication systems in the automotive context necessitates hands-free and attention undemanding systems. Todays hands-free car kits are of increasingly high quality, since bad audio quality can negatively impact the overall communication quality. Most solutions use built-in speakers for output and a microphone near the driver (e.g. on the ceiling). Thereby, audio quality can suffer e.g. from the long distance between the speaker and the listener. In a recent study, we compared perceived voice quality and social presence of a prototype with speakers installed in the headrest of a vehicle, to a high-end on-board audio system in a communication situation between a person sitting in the drivers seat and a person outside the vehicle. We found that Personal Audio received generally better results while also introducing its own set of issues, e.g., causing spatial disorientation in communication situations, in which other individuals are present in the car.