Motivated by the idea that slow breathing practices could transform the automobile commute from a depleting, mindless activity into a calming, mindful experience, we introduce the first guided slow breathing intervention for drivers. We describe a controlled in-lab experiment (N=24) that contrasts the effectiveness and impact of haptic and voice guidance modalities at slowing drivers' breathing pace, which is a known modulator of stress. The experiment was conducted in two simulated driving environments (city, highway) while driving in one of two driving modes (autonomous, manual). Results show that both haptic and voice guidance systems can reduce drivers' breathing rate and provide a sustained post-intervention effect without affecting driving safety. Subjectively, most participants (19/24) preferred the haptic stimuli as they found it more natural to follow, less distracting, and easier to engage and disengage from, compared to the voice stimuli. Finally, while most participants found guided breathing to be a positive experience, a few participants in the autonomous driving condition found slow breathing to be an unusual activity inside the car. In this paper, we discuss such considerations, offer guidelines for designing in-car breathing interventions, and propose future research that extends our work to on-road studies. Altogether, this paper serves as foundational work on guided breathing interventions for automobile drivers.

BackgroundThe daily commute could be a right moment to teach drivers to use movement or breath towards improving their mental health. Long commutes, the relevance of transitioning from home to work, and vice versa and the privacy of commuting by car make the commute an ideal scenario and time to perform mindful exercises safely. Whereas driving safety is paramount, mindful exercises might help commuters decrease their daily stress while staying alert. Increasing vehicle automation may present new opportunities but also new challenges.ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the design space for movement-based mindful interventions for commuters. We used qualitative analysis of simulated driving experiences in combination with simple movements to obtain key design insights.MethodsWe performed a semistructured viability assessment in 2 parts. First, a think-aloud technique was used to obtain information about a driving task. Drivers (N=12) were given simple instructions to complete movements (configural or breath-based) while engaged in either simple (highway) or complex (city) simulated urban driving tasks using autonomous and manual driving modes. Then, we performed a matching exercise where participants could experience vibrotactile patterns from the back of the car seat and map them to the prior movements.ResultsWe report a summary of individual perceptions concerning different movements and vibrotactile patterns. Beside describing situations within a drive when it may be more likely to perform movement-based interventions, we also describe movements that may interfere with driving and those that may complement it well. Furthermore, we identify movements that could be conducive to a more relaxing commute and describe vibrotactile patterns that could guide such movements and exercises. We discuss implications for design such as the influence of driving modality on the adoption of movement, need for personal customization, the influence that social perception has on participants, and the potential role of prior awareness of mindful techniques in the adoption of new movement-based interventions.ConclusionsThis exploratory study provides insights into which types of movements could be better suited to design mindful interventions to reduce stress for commuters, when to encourage such movements, and how best to guide them using noninvasive haptic stimuli embedded in the car seat.

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Textile interfaces can be ubiquitously integrated into the fabrics that already surround us. So far, however, existing interfaces transfer concepts, such as buttons and sliders,to the textile domain without leveraging the affordances and qualities of fabric. This paper presents Grabrics, a two-dimensional textile sensor that is manipulated by grabbing a fold and moving it between your fingers. Grabrics textile nature allows it to be integrated invisibly into everyday clothing or into textile objects, like a living room sofa. We describe the construction and the fold-based interaction technique of Grabrics sensor. A preliminary user study shows that Grabrics can be folded and manipulated from any arbitrary position, and it can detect 2D stroke gestures reliably. The additional fee must be paid to ACM. This text field is large enough to hold the appropriate release statement assuming it is single spaced in a sans-serif 7 point font. Every submission will be assigned their own unique DOI string to be included here. AbstractTextile interfaces can be ubiquitously integrated into the fabrics that already surround us. So far, however, existing interfaces transfer concepts, such as buttons and sliders, to the textile domain without leveraging the affordances and qualities of fabric. This paper presents Grabrics, a twodimensional textile sensor that is manipulated by grabbing a fold and moving it between your fingers. Grabrics textile nature allows it to be integrated invisibly into everyday clothing or into textile objects, like a living room sofa. We describe the construction and the fold-based interaction technique of Grabrics sensor. A preliminary user study shows that Grabrics can be folded and manipulated from any arbitrary position, and it can detect 2D stroke gestures reliably.