In this day and age of digital and technological transformation, the automotive industry is witnessing changes at a much faster pace than ever before. The once dreamt of autonomous driving vehicles have seen a major boost in the past few years, and some of their features are now available in even the mass selling vehicles.
According to technology company Continental, digitisation, networking, semi-autonomous driving functions and, above all, people's rapidly changing user behaviour require new mobility concepts. As a result, the automobile is becoming the much-cited 'smartphone on wheels.'
In the future, highly automated vehicles will offer occupants more space for relaxation and entertainment and serve as a partner who interacts via intelligent language assistance, 3D displays, and innovative functions. To ensure that the technologies are well accepted amongst the customers, providing customers with a positive user experience (UX) is very important.
As the development of new automobiles is becoming increasingly complex, 'A major challenge is to anticipate what people will want, need and expect from communication, entertainment content and mobility solutions in five to ten years and beyond,' explained Guido Meier-Arendt, Human Machine Interface (HMI) Principal Expert at Continental, during the TechTalk on Psychology of Mobility. The virtual TechTalk focused on how technology must be designed so people can trust it.
Meier-Arendt added that to do this, the industry must rethink mobility, “For example, we will increasingly offer cloud-based services in the future.” Under this, Continental plans to make automobiles that can become a part of a mobility network in which different road users communicate seamlessly with each other, he added, “This creates a holistic and safe mobility experience,” he added.
The company follows a user-centred development approach: the needs of people are at the centre of all technological developments. Continental believes it to be an extremely complex task, Arendt said. 'The first step in every development is to understand the user and their context. The crux of the matter is that needs and expectations depend both on the current situation and enduring user characteristics,' he added.
He noted that every new technology has three distinct pillars, Novelty, Attractiveness and Simulation, and these pillars decide if a system can evoke a positive mobility experience by addressing the needs of human drivers.
As a technology company, Continental has to find out what people need – even if they may not be able to articulate this themselves, the HMI principal expert said. So in addition to systematically involving the user in technology development, the company also applies approaches to HMI vision development,' explains Meier-Arendt.
Future studies, current usage trends – such as popular consumer electronics and video gaming – and a wide range of cultural, sociological and demographic factors are analysed and considered. He said this gives the company's experts an initial idea of which solutions will make mobile life safer, more convenient and more efficient in the future.
To receive realistic feedback on the effect of new products, the developers at Continental, in cooperation with the in-house psychologists, use so-called 'Wizard of Oz' vehicles. Test subjects are told that they are driving an autonomous steering car – although a Continental engineer behind a curtain on the passenger seat is steering the car via right-hand drive.
The behaviour of users was tested and recorded with a deceptively real-looking autonomous drive. Test subjects were instructed to make phone calls, type text messages, eat and drink, and even turn to the back seat. An artificially intelligent algorithm was trained to generate a suitable response from the intelligent monitoring and HMI system for every user status in the cockpit. For example, if the user’s head was turned backwards, the seat vibrated to draw attention to a warning display. Alternatively, audio warning signals were played. Afterwards, intensive psychological interviews determined which situation and feedback the test subjects felt safest and most comfortable with.
In another experiment, the interaction of pedestrians and cyclists with autonomously driving cars and delivery robots was tested. For this, Sebastian Weiss, a psychologist specialising in human factors research and his team equipped the test subjects with virtual reality glasses.
Virtual vehicles were equipped with various warning light systems in artificial but realistic street scenes. Sometimes warning lights shone green or red on the hood; sometimes, lights were attached around the vehicle's body.
'Protecting vulnerable road users is central to Continental's development work,' said Weiss. “But we can only see whether a proposed solution works in tests with real people – in the safe environment of a virtual world.”
However, the primary questions are- How do people interact with autonomously driving vehicles? Which signals encourage people to cross the street, which ones to stop, and which ones might confuse them? Does only the pedestrian detected by the autonomous system move, or does the cyclist hidden by the truck in the adjacent lane also feel addressed? Can statements about autonomous cars also be applied to other mobility solutions, such as delivery robots? And these are the questions Continental seeks to answer with its technology solutions, he added.
To not only develop strategies but also adapt them in the daily development of real-world applications, Continental employs engineers, IT experts, and specialists for artificial intelligence and big data in its research and development centres around the world, as well as media, graphic designers and traffic psychologists to best understand future user needs.
For Continental, Weiss traces the needs of people and the users of tomorrow and translates that into recommendations for future technology solutions. However, it is not feasible to directly ask all users about their mobility wishes and needs; therefore, Weiss and his team have an extensive portfolio of psychological communication processes and high-tech laboratory equipment.
In the virtual reality laboratory, subjects test innovations in simulated traffic worlds. There is even a converted premium limousine that offers a 180-degree view from a real cockpit of virtual road situations shown on large monitors in front of the demonstrator. 'We accompany new developments, especially for human-machine interfaces, from the first concept phase until just before they are ready for series production,' explains Weiss. 'The decisive factor here is always to see people at the centre of all considerations and experiments,' he said.
Users test the new technologies in every development phase and undergo extensive interviews. Continental’s HMI team seeks to create user experiences that are intuitive, understandable, efficient, and increase safety. Above all is the question: Do people have confidence in technology?
'Trust is a crucial factor,' says Continental HMI expert Meier-Arendt. “The more vehicles that are highly automated and will also operate fully autonomously in the future, the more important it is for users to trust the technology.”
He added that one of the greatest challenges in modern automotive engineering is to develop concepts and solutions that give people the feeling of safety and reliability in the technology.
The company said the results from the extensive tests and psychological surveys flow into the concrete design of new HMI solutions.
Jochen Möller, Senior Expert, User Experience & Interaction Design, Continental, stated that the goal is to develop technologies that create real added value for the user. “It can be very practical, such as being able to make payments from the car via an intelligent display. But emotional added value is also essential for a positive user experience, for example, if the presence of a surface or a rotary knob simply feels good,” he added.
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