Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications

Gas Station Creative Probing: The Front Seat Passenger
ABSTRACT
Sebastian Osswald, Manfred Tscheligi
Christian Doppler Laboratory for "Contextual Interfaces"
HCI & Usability Unit, ICT&S Center
University of Salzburg
Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse 18, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
{sebastian.osswald, manfred.tscheligi}@sbg.ac.at
Creative probing is a decent method to record a point of
view from participants towards their situational experience
by making particular ideas, motivations or desires visible.
Regarding the car context, designers often use the target
group of drivers for in-car interfaces design. In this work, we
describe an adopted creative probing method to involve the
front seat passengers in the design process. To recruit the
desired target group we propose the gas station as recruiting
area, due to the high frequency of possible participants
who are at this point in direct contact with the respective
context.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.2 [User Interfaces]: Theory and methods
Keywords
Creative Probing, Gas Station, Advanced Automotive User
Interfaces, Front Seat Passenger
1. INTRODUCTION
In this paper, we present a creative probing approach conducted
at a gas station using the creative card technique [1],
to investigate front seat passengers’ informational needs in
different driving situations. The creative card approach for
the context car already showed its potential in a previous
study [3]. The gas station context is a promising area for
conducting studies [2], as it is most likely a place to meet the
desired target group. The aim of this approach is to adapt
the traditional recruiting process by transferring it into an
area that is related to the desired target group.
2. GAS STATION PROBING
The gas station recruiting approach was developed during
a study that aimed to get inspirations for innovative and
creative user interfaces for the front seat passenger. The
Copyright held by author(s)
AutomotiveUI’11, November 29-December 2, 2011, Salzburg, Austria
Adjunct Proceedings.
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study goal was to get a direct connection to a hard-to-reach
target group in a short time and receive a diverse set of creative
materials that serves as inspiration for designing future
front seat passenger cockpits. We assumed that a creative
probing study at a gas station would ease the recruiting
process through the high frequency of possible participants.
Another benefit was that the participants could return the
probing booklet independently at the gas station, which was
arranged in advance with the gas station staff. We expected
a higher returning rate as the booklet did not need to be
returned by mail. Using the gas station as a recruiting area
is grounded in an awareness that essential aspects of the creative
probes needed to be adapted to the gas station. Thus,
in the next sections considerations towards the environment,
the target group and the study process are described.
The Environment The selected gas stations need to be
regarded in advance since their customers can vary widely
depending on the surrounding area. Consistent with the
respective target group, it needs to be considered if participants
are required that return frequently to the gas station
or if it is sufficient to stop once. For example, highway gas
stations have a higher occurrence of truck drivers and transients.
Near national boarders the amount of fuel tourists
increases depending on the fuel prices in the affected countries.
Otherwise, the amount of local, returning gas station
customers increases at gas stations in the center of a city.
Nevertheless, the frequency of local customer groups also
varies according to the surrounding area (in a central business
district there are more customers in the morning and
in the evening) or when e.g. roadworks block the access to
the gas station (general decrease of customer frequency).
Study Target Group To address the issue that driver
and front seat passenger are not necessarily driving together
regularly, the researchers need to ask during the recruiting
if they are able to perform the task together. Although
front seat passengers are the target group within this probing
study, the incentives focus on the driver to take him/her
into responsibility for returning the probe. It seems more
likely that the driver motivates the front seat passenger to
finish the tasks and then returns to the gas station in comparison
to vice versa motivation.
Study Process Due to the gas station environment, it is
advisable to split the probing phase into a first starting exercise
performed at the gas station and tasks to be conducted
afterwards during a specified period of time. This is