Skills:
Research
Prototyping
UX
Interaction

Project for U-Tokyo Research & DLX Design Labs

Summer 2020

Controls & Communication with Autonomous Vehicles

Done in collaboration with the U-Tokyo DLX Design Labs, this project explores how passengers and autonomous vehicles might communicate with one another in varying stakes of control. You can find the most recent development of the project on the DLX Design site.

Context

As autonomous vehicles reach levels 3 and 4 autonomy, the ways passengers interact with their vehicle need to be negotiated. How can we strike a balance in trusting our vehicle?

Goal

Explore means for vehicles and passengers to communicate and activate driving in relationship with active research labs.

As a joint research effort between DLX Design Lab and U-Tokyo’s autonomous vehicles research groups, our core mission was to explore opportunities for multimodal interactions between a driver and their vehicle.

Research consisted of context development, defining autonomous user journies, and sensemaking the opportunities towards core interest areas.

Development of the project focused on ideation and testing of near-future and speculative interaction designs fostered through co-creation sessions with research labs and internal prototyping.

The final outcome served as a foundation for the continued exploration of autonomous communications and controls that are still being developed. Please feel free to stay up to date with this work by checking the DLX Design Lab site and their dedicated mobility page.