Design Process

Introduction

Challenge

Design Process

Design Research

Prototype Development

User Testing

Future Work

How might we redesign the onboard experiences for passengers of autonomous vehicles?

Techniques & Tools

Software: XCode, Swift, Madmapper, Projection Mapping

Design: Figma, Prototyping, User Testing, User Interviews

Team

Mentors/Advisors: Dr. A. Agogino, Dr. E. Kim

Software: T. Liaw, M. Kumaran

Hardware: J. Tabuada, P. Cholsaipan

Design: K. Pham, S. Hyoung

Final Product

As autonomous vehicles technology is rapidly improving, this opens up opportunities to design for passengers who will no longer need to operate the vehicle to drive. However, we need to consider the values that passengers truly need and be aware of dangerous situations that can arise from faulty designs in autonomous vehicles.

Our goals were to:

1. Explore user pain points with autonomous vehicles.

2. Redesign autonomous vehicle interiors to reflect user needs and wants.

3. Implement prototypes to present to stakeholders.

We employed a human-centered design approach to this project in order to empathize with users of autonomous vehicles and design solutions to real problems. We had weekly team meetings with our clients and advisors to present our ongoing work and to receive feedback on the direction of the project. We conducted all of our prototyping and user testing in an Airstream donated to us by our client.

Airstream Prototyping Space

Previous Work

The previous team at our center conducted literature review and user testing to determine opportunities to design for users in autonomous vehicles. After the completion of their prototype, we whiteboarded user pain points from their work.

Brainstorm Session: Pain Points

Based on the previous work, our design team created two user scenarios based on created personas: Stressed Sam & Curious Cameron.

Stressed Sam

Curious Cameron (Originally Curious Kevin)

Based on the user scenarios, I worked together with the design and hardware teams in creating an interactive space to test our scenarios with actual users.

Stressed Sam

Given the Stressed Sam scenario, she typically drives her autonomous vehicle for work/school commute. In order to reduce her stress levels to promote wellness, we developed a interior design focused on the senses of:

• Vision

• Sound

• Touch

• Smell

As we considered seating arrangement to be a designable factor, we decided upon a traditional, forward-facing seating arrangement for the Stressed Sam scenario. For the user to control the interactive environment, we designed the user interface with a mobile application.

Stressed Sam Interior Space Mockup

Stressed Sam: Software Interface & Interaction Development

Vision

We envisioned a space in which we could project relaxing scenes onto the front car screen, including scenes of rain, waves, beach, etc. I worked with the hardware team on installing projectors in the Airstream for user testing, and mapping the projections to fit frontal area of the Airstream with Madmapper.

Initial projection setup

Sound

We set up a binaural 360 degree sound environment with speakers with sounds proven to have a relaxing effect, so we set up a speaker system in the Airstream to test relaxing sounds of rain, wind chimes, underwater sounds, city life, jazz and ASMR.

Touch

The previous team’s work included a prototype for providing unique haptic effects to users in autonomous vehicles. We reused the prototype by integrating the machinery into the car chairs in order to provide an immersive relaxing effect. We also attached a full-body massage cushion to combine with the haptic prototype.

Smell

Although we researched aromatherapy for our interior spaces, we did not implement this into user testing.

User Interface

The design team created a high-fidelity mockup of the mobile interface in Figma. With the mockup, I developed the iOS application for users to choose pre-designed settings or create their own immersive environment for relaxation.

Figma Mockups

Curious Cameron

Curious Cameron is an autonomous vehicle driver who enjoys road trips and wants to interact with the car’s outside environment and the inside passengers.

We designed a seating arrangement with flexibility in several directions. The user will be able to rotate their seats outwards to enjoy the view, inwards to interact with passengers and/or partially flip the chair for an arm rest. The hardware team created a low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes of these chairs.

Inward Facing Mockup: Passenger Interacton

Outward Facing Mockup: Environment Interaction

We designed for a 360-degree clear window panel with augmented reality projections of local landmark information based on other travelers’ or locals’ inputs. I set up projectors in the Airstream to project for a 180 degree area for user testing. I worked with projection mapping with Madmapper to project the drive through Yosemite and the projections of the user-indicated landmarks onto the screen. I developed the projection mapping so that it would be interactive with the user interface that was designed for a tablet device.

User Interface

The design team created a mockup of a tablet user interface with Figma, which I implemented on an iPad. This interface would allow users to personalize their desired landmarks that would be projected onto the outside environment.

Figma Mockups

For Stressed Sam, we wanted to test:

1. Visual, audio and haptics effects

2. Pre-designed vs. user-created environments

3. User interface

For Curious Cameron, we wanted to test:

1. Usability of landmark projections

2. Flexible seating arrangement

3. User interface

I worked with the design team on creating a user testing guide and post-interview questions for both user scenarios.

Preliminary User Testing

We presented our work to the ISAM (International Symposium of Academic Makerspaces) at Stanford University and used the opportunity to do preliminary user testing and created a low-fidelity prototype of both our user scenarios.

Low-Fidelity Prototype for Preliminary User Testing

Renault-Nissan Demo Day

We presented our work to Renault-Nissan and conducted user testing with autonomous vehicle experts.

Stressed Sam User Testing

Curious Cameron User Testing

Curious Cameron UI User Testing

During user testing, we found interactions with the user interfaces with both Stressed Sam and Curious Cameron scenarios lowered the feelings of immersiveness, whether that be relaxation or exploration. We concluded that the tablet or mobile interface limited the immersiveness of the environments.

We then brainstormed other interaction designs including:

• eye-tracking technologies

• speech command

• virtual reality/augmented reality

This led to a continuation of this project in which I worked with the design and hardware team exploring projection mapping as an interface for autonomous vehicle users. I presented this future work at the International Human-Computer Interaction Conference in July 2019.