Shaping Autonomous Vehicles: Towards a Taxonomy of Design Features Instilling a Sense of Safety
Paper in proceeding, 2022

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled service robots. Whilst having the potential to enhance our transport systems and journey experiences, there are concerns that the public may be reluctant to adopt AVs, largely driven by doubts about their safety. In this study, we focussed on the role of the exterior vehicle design to instil a sense of safety on behalf of the passenger and bystander, i.e. pedestrians and cyclists. Senior automotive and transport designers were interviewed to identify key design features which revealed a common understanding of key features but also an apparent dichotomy or incompatibility in terms of design directions when considering passengers versus bystanders. Furthermore, designers’ understanding was largely based on their experience of conventional vehicles leading to uncertainty as to the validity in the context of future AVs. The results provide an initial set of design features that will be tested and evaluated with prospective AV users to explore the potential knowledge gap between designers’ intentions and customers’ expectation. This will provide design practitioners tangible, relatable anchors to direct activities towards critical design features whilst enabling design management to introduce more objectivity in their decision making.

Safety perception

Exterior design

Autonomous vehicles

Author

Cyriel Diels

Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Design

Royal College of Art

Kostas Stylidis

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Product Development

University West

Artur Mausbach

Royal College of Art

Dale Harrow

Royal College of Art

Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Design

Communications in Computer and Information Science

1865-0929 (ISSN) 18650937 (eISSN)

Vol. 1583 CCIS 172-180
9783031063930 (ISBN)

24th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI International, HCII 2022
Virtual, Online, ,

Subject Categories

Design

Interaction Technologies

Human Computer Interaction

DOI

10.1007/978-3-031-06394-7_24

More information

Latest update

8/8/2022 1