Tag Archives: panel

Automotive UI: Expert discussion at CHI 2018

From top left to bottom right: Shamsi Iqbal, Ingrid Pettersson, Chris Janssen, Susanne Boll, Albrecht Schmidt, Alex Meschtscherjakov, Andrew Kun

I’ll moderate an expert discussion at this year’s CHI entitled Automotive User Interfaces: Expert Discussion. If you’re at CHI and interested in this topic, plan to attend on Thursday, April 26, 9-10:20, Room 516C.

Abstract: Automation is making significant advances in vehicles, with adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assistance being prominent technologies we encounter on the road today. How should we design user interactions for vehicles with automation? Panelists will lead the audience in discussions about (a) how to design interactions for driving-related and non-driving-related activities; (b) how the designs are affected by the availability of different types of vehicle automation, and how their effectiveness can be tested, (c) how we can approach the designs from the perspective of vehicle occupants, as well as from the perspective of other traffic participants, and (d) how to guide not only practice but also theory development about human-machine interaction for automated vehicles.

Discussion participants:

Susanne Boll, University of Oldenburg
Shamsi Iqbal, Microsoft Research
Christian P. Janssen, Utrecht University
Alexander Meschtscherjakov, University of Salzburg
Ingrid Pettersson, Volvo and Chalmers University
Albrecht Schmidt, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich

 

Discussion on self-driving cars at Science Cafe Concord

This week I had a chance to participate in a panel discussion on self-driving cars at the Concord Science Cafe, organized by David Brooks. David is a science writer for the Concord Monitor – thanks David for inviting me! The other panelists were Joe Cunningham of NHTI, and Sean Smith of Dartmouth. Joe’s background is in robotics and automation, while Sean is a computer scientist with a focus on information security.

Science Cafe brings together experts from a particular field and an audience made up of members of the community who are interested in that topic. The audience brings up questions and problems, and the panel tries to provide insight from their own perspective. In our case this resulted in a really fun exchange of ideas between David who was moderating, the panelists, and the audience of about 50.

Some of the things I learned from this panel:

  • You should organize an event like this at a bar, in order to make everyone relax and feel comfortable.
  • Many people worry about the capabilities of self-driving cars: are they really better than humans?
  • Tire pressure sensors can be a security risk because they can be detected from outside the vehicle, even to set off an explosive meant for the passengers of that vehicle.
  • Owners of self-driving cars might look for modifications to the car’s software, e.g. to set up their vehicle to exceed the speed limit. Thus, even with self-driving cars we will still need traffic rule enforcement of some kind.