Keeping a finger in the pie?

In fully automated vehicles, human participation in the driving task is unnecessary but some involvement is desired from a user acceptance and experience perspective. A new collaborative relationship will need to be established, thus this study explores how users perceive different relationships between vehicle and human and which preferences they hold. For the study, four prototypes of interaction designs were developed, each embodying one hypothesis for a collaborative relationship. They were tested with 24 drivers in a scenario-based within-subject study using a very simple driving simulator. Each participant tested two prototypes, and half of participants noticed a difference between the pair they experienced. Differences were seen relating to the dimension of adaptation, like how involved the vehicle invited them to be, how it presented options and how the interaction made them feel more or less responsible. The different interpretations of control appear to have played a central role in the participants’ experiences of the different relationships. In conclusion, the study reinforces the importance of explicitly designing the collaborative relationship between human and vehicle, as well as provides formative insight on which criteria that will need to inform the design of future human – vehicle relationships.