Exploratory Study into Designing Enhanced Commute Experiences in Autonomous Vehicles with Connected Sensors and Actuators

Abstract

This paper discusses an exploratory study regarding user perceptions and behaviors associated with autonomous vehicles (AV). We conducted three research methods – interviews, observations, and surveys – to collect comprehensive user data for capturing useful insights. We found that comfort with light, vehicle safety, audio entertainment and itinerary transparency are the main four concerns that users in our study had in current transportation systems, especially in shared rides. Having these categories as our guidelines for design, we generated conceptsand built a low-fidelity prototype using connected sensors and actuators for user testing. Feedback from potential users and experts in the automobile industry were recorded to refine the proposed concept for further development.