Human Affairs Centered Design Framework for Managing User Experience within Smart Cockpit Systems

Abstract: Technical innovation provides new ways to upgrade the future cockpit systems of smart cars. It caused that auto companies equipped more functions of SCS (smart cockpit systems) with wonderful visual and tactile effects aiming to enhance the humanization of their interactive systems and achieve better interaction effects. However, the increased functionality of the SCS did not show significant effect on enhancing the UX (User Experience), for the reason of the chaotic functional logic, the lack of perception of the system and friendly human-computer interaction. To resolve these problems, this paper aims to present a new method for the upgrade of new SCS design on UX research that can analyze problems systematically and evaluate the variability of perceptual degree. This research proposes a human affairs centered design framework and evaluation model for managing UX within SCS. The elements of the affair can be abstracted on seven levels: subjects, objects, time, space, message, interaction and meaning. Since the new SCS is more inclined to human-robot interaction (HRI), both users and systems can be treated as subjects and objects simultaneously, which indicates that the framework contains dual subject and dual object. Furthermore, the evaluation model on the elements on these levels is composed of a horizontal dimension: perceptual degree of design, and a vertical dimension: variability of perceptual degree. The horizontal dimension is used to evaluate the various elements in the affair based on the products in the design phase, while the vertical dimension is based on the result of UX research. The hypothesis is that the framework can help the design and valuation of UX focusing on humanization and perception within the smart cockpit systems’ design. Validation occurred through a field study performed in a smart car in the design phase, where the basic functions of the prototype has already been realized. Preliminary results validate the usability of the framework and efficiency of the method, thus laying the ground for further research and discussions.

Keywords: user experience, human affair, design framework, smart cockpit system

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002717

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