Creating inclusive HMI concepts for future cars using visual scenario storyboards through design ethnography

Abstract

His paper illustrates the use of scenario writing and storyboard visualisation methods based on ethnographic study of diverse personas, narratives, and user experience to guide automotive engineers and designers for creating innovative ideas and developing inclusive Human Machine Interface (iHMI) concepts for future cars in 2025 and beyond. This paper documents the importance of continuing visual research process based on anthropological case studies that looked into diverse persona, cultural and geographical attributes. These methods are used to visually analyse situational car use, thereby leading to scenario-based HMI tasks that can be applied to generate innovative user oriented future car designs. Storyboard visualisation of narratives is a method that derives from ethnographic interviews with strategically chosen car users from around the world. This is a powerful tool for analyzing situations, describing feelings, and evaluating the usability of functions within the car. With this visual process, future scenarios can be drawn in order to create new and inclusive HMI ideas and design concepts embedded within the storyboards to help engineers and designers’ to understand users’ different needs, exploring their expectations, emotions and motivations. The realistic details on the character illustrations of each persona are essential for better understanding of the users’ including older people, the visually impaired and wheelchair users, child and parent, technophobic or technophile persons. Each HMI concept can be sketched as required in task sequences, with detail and scaled paper model produced for detailed step-by-step design. The required interactions can be observed, photographed and captured on video for in-depth design thinking workshops. A series of HMI working design concepts for future cars will emerge from this pipeline for prototyping and engineering.