12: Adjunct Proceedings - Automotive User Interfaces and ...

Adjunct Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and
Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI '12), October 17–19, 2012, Portsmouth, NH, USA
Social Activities In the Car:
An Ethnographic Study of Driver-Passenger Pairs as
Inspirations for Future “ACDAS”
Nicole Perterer, Petra Sundström,
Alexander Meschtscherjakov, David Wilfinger, Manfred Tscheligi
Christian Doppler Laboratory for "Contextual Interfaces" HCI & Usability Unit, ICT&S Center
University of Salzburg, Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse 18, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
{nicole.perterer, petra.sundstroem, alexander.meschtscherjakov,
david.wilfinger, manfred.tscheligi|}@sbg.ac.at
ABSTRACT
Driving a car can be a very social activity – especially when a
passenger actively takes part in navigation tasks or operates the
infotainment system. Most available Advanced Driver Assistance
Systems (ADAS) fail to make use of the social nature and the
collaborative mechanisms of driving. This paper explores some of
the collaborative dimensions of driving, in order to inform the
design of automotive user interface that helps passengers in
assisting the driver. It presents how we conducted a participatory,
ethnographic study with nine driver-passenger pairs recruited
from an online car-sharing portal. We describe selected findings
we see most relevant to the AUI community: collaborative usage
of navigation devices and the speedometer as a trigger for
collaboration. We introduce the acronym ACDAS – Advanced
Collaborative Driver Assistance Systems – as a new term for
systems, which support collaborative activities inside the car. We
argue why, in our designs of future ACDAS, we need to develop a
deeper understanding of collaboration in general, in addition to
understanding how and in what way other platforms, such as the
mobile phone, will be used in combination with automotive user
interfaces. The notion of a "social car" was provided by the
workshop organizers as cars social entities "socializing one with
the other (similar to how humans are exchanging information)".
We see the car also as a social place, where people are interacting
with each other - either while they are sitting together in a car
(e.g., the driver, and his/her passengers in the front- and rear-seat
of the car) as well drivers wanting to communicate with their
social peers via Facebook and other social services. We will
discuss our findings in this position paper. The collaboration
within the car allows us to investigate the car as a social and
collaborative place.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI):
Miscellaneous.
Keywords
Driver assistance; in-car technologies; GPS; speedometer
Copyright held by author(s)
AutomotiveUI`12, October 17-19, Portsmouth, NH, USA.
Adjunct Proceedings
1. INTRODUCTION
Most modern cars are now equipped with Advanced Driver
Assistance Systems (ADAS). A car is a ubiquitous computing
mobility device that allows for information access,
communication, media consumption, and entertainment. Thus, the
main goal of all ADAS – as the name suggests - is to support the
driver with his primary task. However, these systems in
themselves also hold a risk of distracting drivers. High complexity
and demanding functionality of the ADAS hold as much risk in
distracting the driver. For example, 37% of all traffic accidents are
associated with inattention due to drivers’ engagement in tertiary
tasks, such as mobile phone conversations [6]. Therefore, the
design and development of future ADAS is a highly relevant topic
to the automotive community; one solution is to make them more
collaborative and socially sensitive.
Driver assistance existed long before ADAS made their way into
the car. Front-seat passengers do not just support the driver in
finding the way to a destination, but also in handling the radio,
opening snacks, as well as supporting potential backseat
passengers and many other tasks. Compared to assistance
technologies, assistance through a human passenger is
conceptually different. On one hand, ADAS have advantages over
human assistance in preventing accidents (e.g., automated braking
to reduce the risk of a collision) or in maneuvering skills (e.g.
keeping a safe distance from the vehicle in front). On the other
hand, human assistance is superior to technological assistance
systems because humans are more flexible and capable of
adapting to a range of conditions. Humans can react to contextual
changes during a journey in a more subtle ways and adapt their
assistance according both to environmental and social factors.
Furthermore, driving has historically been a social activity. Even
the first cars were not designed only for the driver. As drivers, we
are often not alone in the car, a especially not when going for
longer drives where we are unfamiliar with the route and,
therefore, make more use of supportive systems such as the GPS
[5]. In these situations, it is not uncommon that front-seat
passengers help with e.g., reading and handling these assistance
systems. It can clearly be stated that the front-seat passenger has a
very specific role in the car. He is the second closest person to the
driver’s seat, which means he almost has the same access to many
of these advanced systems in the car. Most ADAS are,
nevertheless, neither designed for this kind of collaborative usage
or for being used by front-seat passengers alone. Current ADAS
greatly fail to make use of the collaborative aspects of driving.
Within this paper, we also introduce the acronym ACDAS –
Advanced Collaborative Driver Assistance Systems – as a new
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