HMI Interface design
Autonomous car entertainment design
Time
Aug2022-Nov2022
Individual work
How might we spend our time during a ride in autonomous driving era?
DESIGN
BACKGROUND
Beijing is a city with severe traffic congestion and at the same time having a strong focus on autonomous tech. The research aims to get a basic understanding about the context of travailing by vehicles in Beijing. I ask questions such as when, why, how long, and more importantly, what future will be like here.
FACT: Most citizens in Beijing have to spend 2 hours on commute every day for traffic jam.
Average speed during peak hours gets as low as riding a bike
An analytics by Beijng Transport Development Institution shows during peak hours, 33% of car trips occur in the morning peak 7:00-9:00 and evening peak 17:00-19:00, with the average speed 22.4 km/h, basically in line with the characteristics of people's morning and evening peak hours concentrated travel.
China’s driverless market is growing steadily and more cars are equipped with entertainment terminals
China's driverless market penetration rate will reach about 66% in 2023, and with the upgrade of autonomous driving and connected technology, the market penetration rate can reach 75.9% in 2025. China is expected to become the world's largest driverless market
L0 L1 L2 L3
FULL
CONTROL
EYES OFF
FEETS OFF
HAND OFF
No Automation
Driver Assistance
Partial
Automation
Conditional
Automation
L4 L5
MIND OFF
DRIVER OFF
High
Automation
Full
Automation
Since most cars are designed with the goal in L4 autonomy, I positioned the autonomous driving context level as L4-L5 in my design.
FIELD RESEARCH
I want to figure out the driver's opinion to the autonomous car and their daily routine and need for in car entertainment.
Questionnaire
Research goals
· Need of entertainment during the ride
· Entertainment preference
· Acceptance of autonomous driving
Participants
· 22 participants
· 11*Female 10*Male 1*LGBT+
· At least 4 years driving experience
· 83% of participants are under 44 years old
Questions outline
· Basic information
· Entertainment preference
· Commute preference
· Automobile acceptance
· Recreational equipment installed on car
· Usage of recreational equipment
Findings
1. People always get bored during the ride.
2.Passengers concern more about the safety on a ride than other factors.
3.The passengers have limited imagination of their in-car entertainment.
Interview
The goal of research
· Entertainment and gaming preference on ride
· Pain point and opportunity of current driving
· Expectation to future automobile or HMI system
Participants
· 6 participants
· 10 years driving experience in average
· All positive to autopilot ca
Questions outline
· Basic information
· Entertainment preference
· Commute preference
· Automobile acceptance
· Recreational equipment installed on car
· Usage of recreational equipment
SiWei
company owner
During driving, I prefer listening to music on my ride to work, it makes me feel good
TESLA MODEL 3
Nick Name: Fang
( From her son's name)
Decoration: None
Billy
grad student
As a newbie , I am so nervous to deal with so many incidents happened on the road properly.
BYD TANG
Nick Name: Tang
Decoration: Tiger Pillow
(From his father's zodiac)
Wanwen
design director
Interacting with the staff in the theme park always makes me feel the sense of living in a real magic world.
BMW
Nick Name: Bluey
(The color of the car)
Decoration: Sea Pillow
Liao
civil servants
Passing the car in front of me swifly excites and thrills me, it's what makes driving fun for me.
LEXUZ ES200
Nick Name: Puppy
(From his zodiac)
Decoration: Dog Pillow
(From his zodiac)
1. People like give their cars character as the car is a real person or pet.
2. Drivers like to decorate and name their car as the person/pet they pictured.
Findings
DATA SYTHESIS
I used the affinity digrams approach to organize the information I collected from user interviews and surveys. I put down user words and then group them into their natural relationships according to affinity of meanings
Affinity Diagramming
A. Listing the thoughts from users
B. Grouping the thoughts into idea
C. Summaring the ideas into insights
Insights
User Persona
IDEATION
STORYBOARD
I described the storyboards to 10 target users and asked them to rate each ideas on a five-point scale and explain why. Then I chose the highest two scores in the storyboard to create final design.
Findings
Most people like those ideas of having some fun during the ride, but for the average, driving is a serious activity about their safeties, the car can not just be designed as a game pod.
FINAL CONCEPT
Based on the research, we designed an avatar system to help passengers relieve anxiety and create a relaxed driving atmosphere in autonomous driving. They may also use it to explore the whole city.
Features
Choosing your avatar
Drivers can choose the car avatar according to their imagination of the car, they can change the appearance of the avatar according to their preferences and give them nick names like it exist in the real world.
Journey Companion
In the research, although all the respondents showed concerns about avatar‘s battle game, they enjoyed the company of the avatar in the car, so a game related to the real world are created to help the drivers to bond with their own avatar.
Explore in the city
Autonomous driving can cause some passengers to lose the sense of in control during the ride. The avatar animation is designed to synchronize with the actual direction of the car's movement to reduce passenger anxiety.
Wireframe
PROTOTYPE & USER TESTING
I built a simulated self-driving environment with a projector, stereo, steering wheel, and iPad, and invited students corresponding to persona to experience the draft design of each idea. They were asked to give their own comments after experiencing.
