Lookie here! Designing interventional user interfaces for conditional self-driving vehicles

Abstract

In this paper we investigated whether providing directional alerts to a user’s active screen can augment their ability to regain situational awareness when traveling in a conditional autonomous (Level 3) vehicle. A user study (N=15) was conducted in the lab environment with a driving simulator, where users were distracted by playing a game on a mobile device. A non-directional alert was compared to two separate directional alerts: the central user interface (UI) and the peripheral UI. One located at the center, and one located at the periphery of the participant’s vision while they were focused on the mobile device screen, to understand whether direction data can assist the user. Although there were no significant differences in reaction times, participants perceived themselves performing better when provided with directional alerts. Our findings imply that directional user interfaces have the potential to reduce overall cognitive load and lead to better user experiences for passengers of self-driving vehicles.