Visualising User Experiences: Analysing Embodiment of UX in Autonomous Vehicle Concepts

Abstract

The prospect of autonomous vehicles and associated technologies has disrupted traditional modes of vehicle operation and ownership. This requires automotive designers to shift their focus from designing vehicle form to consider the design of transport experiences. As such, there is a need to explore how best to support automotive designers in communicating user experiences (UX) alongside the physical design of vehicles. This paper presents an industry case study conducted with Ford Design Asia Pacific to assess the embodiment of UX in early concepts. Attributes of generalised model for UX are mapped to designers' storyboard illustration for the experience of an advanced concept for an autonomous vehicle interior. Results show how a mix of captions, sketches of users and contextual features illustrate different attributes of user experience. From findings we conclude firstly, the need to develop a toolkit to help designers communicate descriptions of as yet designed interactions. We also conclude that sketching contextual features of experience can provide a starting point to develop aspects of UX that can be used to differentiate and identify the Ford brand.

Considerations and Challenges of Measuring Operator Performance in Telepresence and Teleoperation Entailing Mixed Reality Technologies

“…As we can infer to this point, operator/user embodiment is a fundamental part of the overall user experience in scenarios of remote robotic control and even avatarization [42]. If there was an interface, that would accommodate all the necessary sensory modalities and stimulate all the human senses in such a way that it would feel "real", we would be able to experience "true" embodiment.…”

“…To better understand embodiment and the underlying factors associated when operating remote avatars or robots, evaluating and modelling human performance is necessary [19,31,42,55]. Evaluating user performance in Virtual Environments (VEs) has always been a longstanding goal [45,55].…”

A method to explore strategies to communicate user experience through storyboards: an automotive design case study

“…Conversely, with tools used to achieve these prototypes, there is limited capacity for designers to communicate intended characteristics of UX alongside early conceptualizations of vehicle form Ranscombe et al (2019). Thus, where the need for UX is growing, we argue that there is a requirement to improve the capture of intended UX in early-stage automotive design to give a richer and more explicit communication of design intent, facilitating better-informed decision making by stakeholders.…”