Applying the User-Centered Design Process to External Car Displays

Abstract

Semi-automated and autonomous cars create new use cases for external displays. Such displays have the potential to provide information about the intentions of an autonomously moving vehicle or indicate the car’s status (manual vs. automated driving). A major challenge is that in-situ studies for evaluating external car displays are not possible yet, since as of now, cars featuring complex external displays are not established on public roads. Autonomous driving prototypes are costly and could provoke risky situations in the wild. Hence, a well thought out design is important. The user-centered design process seems to be a suitable methodology to achieve high usability. This HCI-tool proofed effectiveness in other research areas and could provide valuable contributions towards the development of external car displays. However, in order to use the process it needs to be applied to the context specific challenges. Open research questions are (1) identifying users’ needs and goals regarding external car displays and developing an user-centered, design based toolkit to satisfy those. This paper aims at indicating open hallenges as well as possible solutions. Presented research opportunities and suggestions are meant to be discussed within a workshop. The long-term goal is to acquire best practices for researchers and practitioners in order to develop safe and usable applications for external car displays.