Lecture Course: Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, Winter term 2022/23

The development of user interfaces for vehicles is one of the most challenging areas in human-computer interaction, which is subject to a strong change, especially by current developments (autonomous driving, digitization and electric mobility). After successful participation in the module, the students have a structured understanding of the basic concepts, theories, methods, technologies and tools for the design, development and evaluation of automotive user interfaces. The contents conveyed here are interdisciplinary and both application-oriented and research-oriented. They are based on findings from psychology, computer science, design, engineering sciences and ethics.

The following learning contents are taught in the lectures:

• Psychological basics (for example situational awareness, perception and cognition, driver-vehicle cooperation or functional allocation)
• Primary, secondary and tertiary task contexts in driver-vehicle interaction
• Basic interaction concepts and interaction hardware, available input and output modalities, multimodal interaction, explicit and implicit interaction concepts
• Development process of automotive user interfaces based on the user-centered design process (focusing on challenges in evaluation and defining the goals of usability, safety and vehicle management)
• Guidelines, principles and standards for the development of automotive user interfaces
• Design aspects in the design of automotive user interfaces
• Trends, research questions and concepts regarding driver assistance, autonomous driving (assumption scenarios from cognitive and technical point of view), new information and communication applications and integration of mobile and portable terminals into the interaction with the vehicle
• Trust in autonomous driving and user interfaces that create trust
• Overview of interior and outward sensors to support autonomous driving, driver assistance and explicit / implicit interaction
• Challenges, trends and visions in automotive usage interfaces (boredom vs. stress, security vs. fun, security vs. interaction, privacy, new mobility concepts, entertainment, mobile devices, etc.)
• Ethical, legal and social questions

The exercise deepens the theoretical aspects of the lectures and allows their practical application. It is based on driving simulation by means of Unity and the basics of Android Auto. Students get an overview of the concepts, interfaces and guidelines of Android Auto and develop a simple example application. Furthermore, the students are introduced to the development of driving simulation software with Unity for track creation, user interface design, and  the creation and evaluation of a simulation.