Abstract Watching a movie or a football match is still a favorite activity when it comes to spending time with family or friends. TV interaction and movie selection is typically based on using one remote control to perform a selection on a TV user interface. Hence movie or TV channel selection is thus limited to one user who holds the remote control in their hand. Consequently, long decision-making processes, frustration, and the perception of being excluded are part of this experience. This research focuses on opportunities for tangible interfaces to support collaborative movie selection in the living room. Based on an exploratory phase with a variety of design ideas, we designed and evaluated a tangible interface called Sharemote—a concept that provides physical genre-based tokens as a key concept for decision-making to explore group interests and to narrow down possible movies to select. Based on a controlled mixed-subject lab study, we showed significant improvements in the overall user experience of jointly selecting a movie. Moreover, Sharemote was users’ preferred choice of TV interaction.

Driving a car can be difficult when it comes to distractions caused by operating the in-vehicle infotainment system (IVIS). In-car passengers often help with performing IVIS-related tasks. However, an IVIS is often not designed with a focus on task collaboration. In this article, we focus on how to design in-car systems with the goal to support collaboration between a driver and a front-seat passenger. Based on infotainment-oriented tasks, we initially explore five key collaborative control concepts by means of an IVIS which differ from each other in terms of the number of available IVIS screens (one or two), access to menus (restricted and unrestricted), and the nature of performing tasks in parallel or one after the other. Results from a simulator study with N = 16 pairs show significant effects of the concepts on social collaboration in terms of perceived social connectedness (measured with sub-dimensions connectedness, affiliation, belongingness, companionship), team performance (coordination effectiveness and team cohesion), and fairness. We found that especially a dedicated passenger IVIS screen empowers front-seat passengers, reduces power dynamics, supports fairness, and minimizes driver distraction (caused by interacting passengers). We discuss the implications of these findings and posit recommendations to design future IVIS in passenger cars with improved driver-passenger collaboration by explicitly designing for balanced power roles, situational awareness, active communication, and a balance between drivers’ privacy and trust toward the passenger. Additionally, we outline a systematic overview of future work to explore the research field of driver-passenger collaboration in more breadth and depth.

With the gradual transition towards assisted and automated driving, the car will transform into a more social environment where passengers and drivers engage in Non-Driving-Related Activities (NDRA). To support collaboration among occupants in future vehicles, research suggests interactive systems controlled by several users at once. In this paper, we explore five concepts for the collaborative performance of NDRA with the use-case of music playlist creation. While prior work investigated the effect on social connectedness, we expand insights towards team performance and fairness. Results from a mixed-subject experiment (N=27) show that the concepts have major consequences on team performance and fairness. Certain concepts can promote or hinder coordination effectiveness and, in turn, impact intra-vehicular collaboration. Our observations also indicate that fairness is key to fostering social collaboration in AVs, while it does not naturally define a high team performance. Subsequently, we provide recommendations to guide future designs of collaborative NDRAs in vehicles.

Automated vehicles (AVs) are expected to enable users to engage in non-driving-related activities (NDRAs). However, users do not easily trust an automated vehicle which poses new challenges for automotive human-machine interfaces (HMIs). Over-presenting vehicle information can distract users from NDRAs, and under-presentation can impact trust and user experience (UX) negatively. To investigate how to best present vehicle information to foster users' trust and UX while performing NDRAs, we designed two in-vehicle HMI concepts: 1) A colored and animated light bar display around the windshield and 2) a windshield display interface presenting pictograms and numbers. Results from a simulator study ($N=18$) indicate that both concepts contribute to a high trust level and UX while not affecting the NDRA performance compared to the baseline of not showing vehicle information. In addition, the light bar provides better UX than the windshield display and is also preferred by users. With our findings, we contribute to the effective design of presenting vehicle information in automated vehicles.

External human-machine interfaces (eHMIs) support automated vehicles (AVs) in interacting with vulnerable road users such as pedestrians. While related work investigated various eHMIs concepts, these concepts communicate their message in one go at a single point in time. There are no empirical insights yet whether distance-dependent multi-step information that provides additional context as the vehicle approaches a pedestrian can increase the user experience. We conducted a video-based study (N = 24) with an eHMI concept that offers pedestrians information about the vehicle’s intent without providing any further context information, and compared it with two novel eHMI concepts that provide additional information when approaching the pedestrian. Results show that additional distance-based information on eHMIs for yielding vehicles enhances pedestrians’ comprehension of the vehicle’s intention and increases their willingness to cross. This insight posits the importance of distance-dependent information in the development of eHMIs to enhance the usability, acceptance, and safety of AVs.