UX Research: Infotainment System for AV Taxi
Introduction
The research was aimed at studying the trust levels for an Autonomous Vehicle Taxi with the relations between various factors of the user interface of the infotainment system and factors relating to the focus population. The study included a scenario-based design to gauge the interaction of passengers with the AV Taxi infotainment system with the central focus on trust, usability, and satisfaction.
Two major research questions-
- What would be the contents of the infotainment system for AV taxis?
- What features of the infotainment system will make passengers trust the AV taxi?
The results obtained enabled the formation of Autonomous Vehicle UI guidelines to enhance the usability of the infotainment system and instill trust towards AV.
The study is conducted in three parts:
- Collecting user opinions and data related to the Autonomous Vehicle technology, taxi riding and trust in the new technology using the methods focus group interview and ethnography.
- Designing prototype using the data collected and
- Further data collection and analysis from feedback on the prototype with a survey
Team and Timeline
As a graduate student, I teamed up with 4 other students and collaborated closely in the entire process.
My role: Ethnography, Focus Group, Ideation, and Brainstorming, Prototyping, Usability Testing in Lab Simulator, Survey Design, Data Analysis using tool R.
Timeline: As a course project while working towards the Master’s degree, we spent around 4 months (1 Semester) in total working on this project.
Background
Mobility services and the way we use them are changing rapidly. The global in-vehicle infotainment market is expected to reach around $58 billion by 2024. The introduction of the fully autonomous vehicle is making us become back seat drivers and autonomous taxi developers are working on creating amazing experiences for their passengers, to make them feel secure and happy during the ride.
The infotainment system has the capability to revolutionize the transportation experience. Consumers need an in-cabin environment that is adaptive to their needs at the moment.
User Research
Desk Research
Infotainment systems are more than displays of vehicle information, they are becoming the future for connecting, by being a holistic system for human-vehicle interaction that ensures the exchange of information between humans, vehicles, and the outside environment.
Based on the research about the two- infotainment systems and taxis, the following basic requirements were discovered-
Infotainment feature requirements:
- High-resolution touch screen
- Smartphone pairing
- Radio reception
- Multi-media support
- Voice assistants
- Android Auto/Apple Carplay compatibility
Taxi/Public Transport requirements:
- Route information with distance and stops
- Entertainment
- Location information
- In-vehicle climate control
Literature Review
Building vehicle experience comes along with the challenge of its acceptance by the users, as there is a high risk of life traveling in an AV. It is suggested that trust in technology is a predictor of acceptance.
The concept of system reliability which means the belief that the system will work as described is a form of trust in the technology; it is in essence the belief that the technology will deliver on its promised performance. There are design principles as a measure of performance followed for building this trust factor shared autonomy, human sensing, deep personalization, and shared perception control. Also, there are factors like clear and bidirectional sensing, response to changes, and multiple means to interact with humans (voice, touch, mobile devices, etc.). Following these will make a better Human-Vehicle Interaction.
Focus Group Interview
The method was chosen to promote synergy and dynamic discussion to obtain the opinions and ideas of the participants for the UI design.
- A basic questionnaire script was prepared prior to the session to facilitate the data collection in one hour.
- the session was conducted with 6 participants in the age group of 20–28, including undergraduate and graduate students recruited from the university campus.
- The goal was to promote open-ended discussion with the focus on the key points of the research
Insights:
- For Trust- Feeling of user control, route information, emergency functionalities, statistics of success, interactive system that mimic driver.
- Functions- Entertainment, system status, privacy, and customizability.
Ethnography
To understand the interaction of the passengers with technology while commuting-
- accompanied participants while traveling in a taxi for a ride.
- interaction with technology and the driver in a real environment was observed and video recorded for future reference
- an open-ended non-scripted discussion with the participant during the ride helped in gathering meaningful insights.
Insights
- Safety: Checking the route and real-time location but not much detailed information
- Entertainment: Internet, Social Media, Music, Sports
- Security: Tracking and sharing the trip with friends and family.
Brainstorming and Ideation
Methods like 10 plus 10, scribble sketching was used for brainstorming different ideas and only relevant features were considered to narrow the focus onto the most voted features of the infotainment system User Interface which will relate to the objective of the study.
Before this, the data collected were analyzed and categorized to create a focus of further research-
Categorization
Based on the data following major categories were considered before jumping to designs-
- Emotion
- User
- Function
- Interaction
The features were designed for two key focus areas- Trust and Function
Scenarios
To narrow down the further research, three scenarios were finalized based on the patterns from the data, and reorganization of the above-mentioned categories-
- Emergency
- Information about unfamiliar places
- Personal device pairing
Ideation
Sketching, doodling, rapid idea generation, voting was used.
Prototyping
Wireframing
Prototyping
Scenario-based high-fidelity designs were created using Adobe XD. Each scenario was prototyped separately along with a tutorial screen to educate users as they use it.
- Emergency Scenario
2. Personal Device Pairing
3. Unfamiliar Places
Test and Research
Testing with simulator
A self-driving simulator was used to create a situation where the user sits at the backseat in a self-driving taxi.
Qualitative data was collected with 6 graduate students recruited on campus. The study was based on the usability of the prototype for each task and trust on AV. Learnt about their areas of comfort and discomfort.
Sentiment Analysis was conducted data collected using- Focus Group, Ethnography and in-lab usability test of the prototyes.
- Are you willing to take an AV taxi in future?
- Are you comfortable AV knowing your information?
- Feelings and thoughts after using the system in AV taxi?
We got 65% positive, 9.8% negative and 24.6% neutral answers.
Survey
- An online survey was prepared on Qualtrics with 91 questions, which took an average of 30 minutes to fill.
- 46 responses (23 females and 23 males) with an average of 30 years were recorded from the United States, Mexico, South Korea and India.
- There were three segments in the survey focusing on demographics (11 questions), personality (35 questions) and prototype evaluation (14 questions for each scenario).
The personality segment included questions related to risk perceptions, attitude scale and behavioral responses for different driving situations. And prototype segment collected feedback in terms of trust, satisfaction and usability. - The questions were based on a seven-point Likert scale. In addition, two open questions were added to collect qualitative data of participant’s feelings or thoughts about the prototypes.
Data Analysis
After gathering the data, the excel sheet of responses was converted into numeric values using SPSS and Minitab. Later the analysis of different segments in the survey was conducted to use the results to find relations between them.
Demographics: participants were educated with a minimum of two years of college level. 90% possess the driver license with an average of 9.5 years of driving experience. All of them were located in urban or suburban areas and 80% had knowledge of Autonomous Vehicle, but only 34% had experienced such technology.
Comparison of 3 scenario prototypes: ANOVA repeated measures within the subject test were conducted. Post-hoc tests were used as an integral part of ANOVA to test the equality of the mean of three scenarios. Statistically significant results indicate that not all of the group means are equal and most of the participants found the “connecting devices” easier to use compared with the “emergency” and “unfamiliar places” scenarios.
Relation between Personality and Usability
- Used tool R for analysis, found linear regression between personality factors like compliance with rules, risk-taking and fun-riders and scenario attributes like usability, satisfaction and trust.
- Relations were random, with Emergency Scenario being positive, unfamiliar places rated low and pairing devices as constant, meaning unfamiliar places may not be required by any personality group as compared to other scenarios.
Correlation between personality and use
- The fun-riding people rated all the scenarios high.
- The rude and fun people rated the usability of pairing devices and unfamiliar places higher.
- Risk takers rates emergency scenario higher
Which feature of infotainment system do you value more? — Emergency and Map information
What is the most important criteria that you need for trusting in AV taxi through UI system? — Emergency and safety issues
Conclusion
Emergency and safety functions in AV are of prime importance and good design with induce trust in AV.
Some participants considered entertainment as important, whereas other did not as compared to other features.
Inferences
Based on the research and analysis, following inferences were drawn-
Application
Four major application points for the inferences ranged from emergency, user category, design, quality and usability.
Limitations
- Online surveys were conducted but a small sample of around 60 responses were regrettable.
- Analysis could have been better given limited prior knowledge of the team.
Learnings
- Users may form usability and reliability through two axes in space. It is desirable for the designers to design in consideration of both top-down that reflects personal characteristics and bottom-up which is a factor of UI in AV
- High-quality design (seamless interaction and visual design) give users a great deal of comfort.
Thanks!
Thank you for reading the case study, please comment or reach me out for any suggestions or details required. Feedback is greatly appreciated.
Special thanks to my team Abril Gomez, Bhavana MS, Hyunjae Park, Hyunjoo Park, Dr. Feng Zhou and everyone who supported and helped me while working on this project.
