Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications

(C)archeology -- Car Turns Outs & Automobility
Alex Zafiroglu, Genevieve Bell, Jennifer Healey
Interaction and Experience Research Laboratory, Intel Corporation
2111 N. E. 25 th Avenue, Hillsboro, OR 97124-5961 USA
{alexandra.c.zafiroglu, genevieve.bell, jennifer.healey}@intel.com
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we describe key findings from the Car Turn Outs
project, Intel Corporation’s Interaction and Experience Research
(IXR) Lab’s first exploratory ethnographic research about cars.
We started with very simple questions: What is a car? What does
it mean to own a car? To use one? To care for one? Spreading
tarps next to cars, we asked drivers to unpack and explain the
contents of their cars to us. We inventoried all of the items that
people use, store, bring in and out, forget about, discard, rely on,
transport, etc. in their cars. This exercise yielded insights on
important activities, routines and social relationships that take
place in/with/through/around/because of the car. These insights
lead us to a further set of questions regarding automobility and
inspired an expanded set of methods and theoretical perspectives
from post-processual archaeology that we are deploying in the
Local Experiences of Automobility (LEAM) Project.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.1.2 [User/Machine Systems]: Human Factors, Human
Information Processing;
General Terms
Documentation, Design, Human Factors, Theory.
Keywords
Automobility, post-processual archaeology, ethnographic research
1. INTRODUCTION
For as many cars as there on the world’s roads, there is a
surprisingly little social science research dedicated to making
sense of them – most of the available research focuses on the
ways cars function as cultural symbols and manifestations of
modernity[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. We wanted to see cars with fresh eyes,
and to think about them as a field site in and of themselves, as an
object of study. We started with some very simple questions:
What is a car? What does it mean to own a car? To use one? To
care for one? Armed with a very basic set of tools: a tarp (a
shower curtain, really), a folding step stool, and cameras, we set
off to interview car owners and users in the US, UK, Australia,
Singapore, China, Malaysia and Brazil.
As part of these interviews, we started with a bit of excavation.
Spreading tarps next to cars, we drew on our archaeology training
and asked drivers to unpack and explain the contents of their cars
to us, while we meticulously recorded the location of each object
and probed: What? Who? When? Where? Why? We inventoried
Copyright held by authors
AutomotiveUI’11, November 29-December 2, 2011, Salzburg, Austria.
Adjunct Proceedings
- 49 -
all of the items that people use, store, bring in and out, forget
about, discard, rely on, transport, etc. in their cars.
Such a simple exercise yielded insights on important activities,
routines and social relationships that take place in/with/
through/around/because of the car. It also helped us understand
what car owners surround themselves with and why. The items
they unpacked served as memory aids to events and routines that
were difficult for us to elicit just through questions and relying on
participants’ unaided memories of what they had done 3 weeks
prior on a Tuesday afternoon. It quickly became clear that the
objects in people’s cars are an important part of their car
experiences. When we helped participants repack after the
excavation we found that regardless of how much or how little
originally came out, very little didn’t go back in the car.
These insights inspired an expanded set of questions about
automobility [7], and a methodology fueled by theoretical
perspectives from post-processual archeology that we are
exploring in the Local Experiences of Automobility Project [8].
2. (C)ARCHEOLOGY
Three observations from Car Turn Outs strongly indicate that to
be successful in building solutions for smart transportation, we
need to broaden our focus beyond the four wheels of the car to the
specific characteristics of local automobility environments. First,
talking about people’s artifacts inside their cars broadens the
discussion to include the large number of users and stakeholders
in and around automobiles that we sometimes forget about in our
concentration on the driver and her experience. Second, as more
internet-connected and video playing devices make their way into
cars, what belongs and doesn’t belong in a car is still being
worked out by drivers, lawmakers, regulators, and law
enforcement. Third, what preoccupies the large number of users
and stakeholders in and around automobiles is culturally and
geographically specific, and cannot be addressed by car
manufacturers alone.
2.1 Invisible/Visible Users
In the US, we heard repeatedly that people bought larger cars as
their families grew. Chloe upgraded from a Volvo station wagon
to a minivan when her two daughters both started school because
“that (Volvo) could only fit a couple of kids. . . . We needed more
space. . . I think once you start having kids and each of them have
a friend and that’s four. . . and a dog. He needs a spot too.” Her
car was riddled with things that don’t belong to her or her kids:
booster seats for other people’s kids, toys, etc. She also had items
that were not intended for anyone in the car, but for those she met
while driving. For example, near her steering wheel she kept food
coupons to hand out to homeless people asking for help at stop
lights. Norashikin, a legal admin and mother of 4 in Penang,
Malaysia, fiercely defended her new special edition Myvi SE with