Human Expectations and Experiences of Autonomous Driving (HEAD)

Purpose and goal

The objective of this project has been to apply a multidisciplinary ethnographic and experimental research model that can identify user expectations and experiences of AD-cars. The project has achieved this by bringing together ethnographic research with automotive user testing. This has involved undertaking ethnographic research in both everyday life and in testing conditions in order to understand how people improvise with existing technologies and how they use and experience future technologies. This model advances understanding of AD both in industry and academia.

Expected results and effects

The project has brought together ethnographic research with automotive testing. This has involved undertaking ethnographic research in both ‘ordinary’ everyday life and in testing and simulation conditions - using the Wizard of Oz-platform - in order to understand how people improvise with existing technologies and how they use and experience future technologies. These approaches has given new ways to get insights from users and has thus enhanced the design process of AD.

Planned approach and implementation

We undertook research with people who were regarded as future AD car users to understand how they experienced commuting to work at present, and how they used existing features. We performed an online ethnography study and explored the families expectations and experiences of AD cars within the DriveMe project. Experimental studies on test track were performed, in combination with an ethnographic approach. In these studies the Wizard of Oz test cars were used. These cars gives the ability to put test persons in a ‘real’ autonomous driving context by simulating all features of the AD car.