Spatial Awareness in Autonomous Driving

Instrumental display UI for building trust in Autonomous Driving 

Time

Client

Project type

Role

July 2023

Design Challenge

Automotive UX Design

Designer

Tools

Figma,  Protopie

Problem outline

The introduction of fully autonomous cars, able to drive themselves, allowing users to completely detach from the attentional demand of traditional driving is no longer a distant reality. As automakers prepare to design vehicles capable of self-driving, and interiors able to differentiate in the setup of seats and experiences achievable in the cabin, the transition between driving modes (autonomous and human) plays a crucial role in addressing trust in AVs.

The ultimate aim of this short challenge (one week) was to design the transition and transformation logic of the instrument cluster display interface in the handover of control from human to autonomous driving.

Solution

The solution designed operates on two different levels of the handover of control from human to autonomous driving. Both on a functional and perceptive level, the solution proposes a re-organization of information architecture and display that is compliant with different seating positions and orientations of users inside the cabin.

The system shows on the instrumental display information that is considered crucial to understanding the vehicle decision-making process, awareness of the surroundings, and overall clues on the march, moving out to other display surfaces all the other elements that are not relevant to the user in this specific display.

Visual impressions and spatial sounds

In order to provide ensuring and easy-to-perceive feedback on surrounding obstacles, gentle light beams and spatial tones are tracking the movement of those obstacles around the car.

The Process

Discover

Besides a general understanding of the UJ of the autonomous driving handover procedure with highlighted pain points and criticalities, the first step of the interface design rebuild has been done through the analysis of case studies among those players that are presenting the market with the most advanced automation driving features lately. That has been done in order to understand which are the lacks and most importantly the levers adopted to address the handover procedure. 5 main levers were spotted among those players.

Define

The concept definition leverages a quite simple intuition. When switching to a fully autonomous drive modality, the user is automatically disengaged from the attentional demand of driving tasks; furthermore, the seat position might change as well as the activities performed in the cabin by all users. For these reasons, the instrumental display becomes responsible for clustering all the information about awareness and decision-making processes of the vehicle (information related to leisure activities is more likely re-directed to other displays shared with all users in the vehicle. 

Human Driving

Semi-autonomous

Full-autonomous

The bigger distance from the instrument cluster and hence from all the information called to ensure trust in the vehicle’s thinking are not comfortable to access anymore in standard visualization patterns. A more immersive and non-invasive modality of conveying that information might be achieved by exploiting other sensorial channels besides sight.

A set of ambient speakers placed around the headrest of the passenger located near the driving block provides light spatial sounds tracked onto every obstacle passing by the vehicle, making it possible to perceive what the car is actually perceiving. Together with sounds, light beams on the instrument cluster flow around the display frame making it possible to perceive them visually from further seat positions.

Prototype and conclusion

Due to time constraints, the prototyping phase couldn’t afford an immersive setup to prototype and test the concept. Still, it has been possible to develop an interactive visualization of the instrument cluster display focused on the transition from human to autonomous driving and on obstacles' detection and warning through spatial sound waves.