driverless car ux - needfinding and prototyping
Wireframe by Hannah Rosenfeld
Our group was tasked with designing the user experience in an autonomous vehicle and uncovering potential issues. The full report was written by all members of our team and can be found on the Medium page of one of our members:
https://medium.com/@hrosenfeld/prototyping-ubers-driverless-car-experience-77d78b1d6971
Our aim was to create a seamless experience for riders, especially in situations where a driver would normally mediate the interaction.
We underwent user testing and multiple iterations to address people's desires and concerns.
some key findings
Wireframe by Hannah Rosenfeld
Familiarity: Users prefer adjusting to new technology incrementally, and so a familiar environment is necessary in the early stages.
Trust & Control: To trust the technology, users need to feel like they have access to control, including
re-routing features and precise drop-off locations.Customization: Users wanted to customize the interior, such as seat layout, but this was a lower priority than trust and familiarity.
Interface: For this early stage, we went with the smartphone screen as the primary interface, since users were familiar with it. They trusted they could communicate with the autonomous technology more clearly than through voice recognition. We designed wireframes of the smartphone being used as an AR device.
As designers, there were many directions we wanted to take this new environment. However, a lot of our findings indicated that many users are slow to warm up to new technology, and so we had to focus on the bare minimum interactions first. We didn't have time to delve further into this project, but I believe it's possible to get users excited about trying new technology with the right incentives.