Obtaining design requirements from the public understanding of driverless technology

Despite a large literature on autonomous vehicles and a large number of relevant surveys examining public perception of self-driving vehicles, recent studies suggest that reported public perception is rapidly changing, volatile, and highly dependent on context and potential biases in reporting. In addition, some conclusions from very recent studies are supported: namely, that very little of the survey literature addresses key user centred design consideration that arise from inclusion of the wider population in the use of autonomous vehicles. We report initial studies that are intended to form part of a method currently under development that aims to bring together automotive design and Inclusive design; an analytical functional approach to design for user capability in the wider population. This paper describes the development stages of a user centred design capable methodology for sampling public opinion from a range of different qualitative studies. The finding are made available at two levels. Firstly, a general report on public perceptions’, examines key elements of sensitivity in responses to autonomous vehicle issues. Secondly, the methodology shows how to address in an unbiased way the specification and design a number of potential HMI concepts for managing takeover from car to driver in an autonomously capable vehicle in urban and highway usage cases.