Heartbeat

Abstract

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are an emerging technology and open up an exciting new space for designing in-car interfaces. This technology enhances driving experience by a strong acceleration, regenerative breaking and especially a reduced noise level. However, engine vibrations and sound transmit valuable feedback to drivers of conventional cars, e.g. signaling that the engine is running and ready to go. We address this lack of feedback with Heartbeat, a multimodal electric vehicle information system. Heartbeat communicates (1) the state of the electric drive including energy flow and (2) the energy level of the batteries in a natural and experienceable way. We enhance the underlying Experience Design process by formulating working principles derived from an experience story in order to transport its essence throughout the following design phases. This way, we support the design of a consistent experience and resolve the tension between implementation constraints (e.g., space) and the persistence of the underlying story while building prototypes and integrating them into a technical environment (e.g., a dashboard).

Investigating EV Driving as Meaningful Practice

“…Our study shows that expectations continue to play an important role when people embed the EVs into driving practices, despite the many regarded concerns and uncertainties associated with driving EVs [26,34,36]. Our findings illustrate how participants adapted expectations they associated with driving in their EVs.…”

“…Following HCI discourses on sustainability, we have seen an interest in electric vehicles (EV's) in later years. A significant number of HCI studies on EV's have focused on the challenges and opportunities in adopting and driving these, as they form a new kind of driving experience compared to a fossil-fuelled car [26,34,36]. To this end, several studies investigate range-related issues such as range anxiety where drivers worry about the depletion of the battery before they reach their destination [26].…”

“…As such, this work has resulted in more design-oriented research addressing challenges related to range anxiety and lack of feedback (e.g. [26,36,37,57]). As examples, Jung et al [26] explore the impact of displayed uncertainty in the car's instrumental estimates of range, while Landau [34] focuses on creating an interface that makes up for the lack of feedback in EVs, for example, the lack of sound or vibration, or knowing when the EV is ready to drive.…”

“…Towards this end, HCI research has studied how to design interfaces to reduce drivers worrying about battery depletion (e.g. [26,34,36,37]). However, few HCI studies have investigated actual use in peoples everyday lives and how people find meaning in electric driving.…”

Detecting and Influencing Driver Emotions Using Psycho-Physiological Sensors and Ambient Light

“…In our concept we chose two ambient lighting colors, a cool color (blue) and a warm color (orange): Blue ambient lighting is related to vitality, energy, and power. Additionally, it is perceived as a calming and pleasant color but barely arousing emotions [37]. Red and orange are associated with a higher arousal level [35].…”