Lookie Here! Designing directional user indicators for conditional self-driving vehicles

Faculty: 
Dr. Wei Wang, Jim Budd
Students: 
Pranav Nair

We investigated whether providing directional alerts to a user's active screen can augment their ability in regaining situational awareness when traveling in an autonomous vehicle (AV). A study was conducted where participants were seated in an AV simulator and distracted by playing a game on a mobile device. During each round, the automation would encounter a point of interest on the road that it would communicate to the participant via an alert. A non-directional alert was compared to directional alerts, located at the center or periphery of the mobile device, to understand whether direction data assisted the user.

Lab: 
Director: 
Jim Budd
Faculty: 
HyunJoo Oh, Sang-won Leigh, Noah Posner, Wei Wang, Matt Swarts,
Students: 
Ceara Byrne, Chris Chen, Himani Deshpande, Mika Munch, Savanthi Murthy, Akash Talyan, Hank Duhaime, Hongnam Lin, Lizzy Fristoe, Ollie Hsieh, Prabodh Sakhardande, Santiago Arconada, Shihui Ruan, Tae Prasongpongchai, Tanuja Swant

The Interactive Product Design Lab (IPDL) is a purpose-built lab designed to support both teaching and research by allowing students to investigate, explore, and experiment with an extensive array of new technologies. Central to this concept, the School of Industrial Design has placed a high priority on the need to foster and develop interdisciplinary, team-based collaboration with other educational and research units from across the campus, including the School of Interactive Computing, the School of Mechanical Engineering, the Graphics Visualization and Usability Lab (GVU), and the Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA). The Interactive Product Design Lab was built in the summer of 2011 and opened in time for the 2011 fall semester.

http://www.id.gatech.edu/research/labs