Rethinking Accessible Prototyping Methods for Blind and Visually Impaired Passengers in Highly Automated Vehicles

TL;DR

This paper explores participatory design methods to develop non-visual interfaces for blind and visually impaired passengers in highly automated vehicles, aiming to enhance their situation awareness and mobility.

Contribution

It introduces two innovative participatory workshops that gather insights from BVIPs to inform the design of accessible HAV interfaces, highlighting effective prototyping approaches.

Findings

Participants' needs for non-visual information were identified.

Prototyping methods for BVIPs can be improved based on workshop lessons.

Designs increased BVIPs' situation awareness in HAVs.

Abstract

Highly Automated Vehicles (HAVs) can improve mobility for blind and visually impaired people (BVIPs). However, designing non-visual interfaces that enable them to maintain situation awareness inside the vehicle is a challenge. This paper presents two of our participatory design workshops that explored what information BVIPs need in HAVs and what an interface that meets these needs might look like. Based on the participants' insights, we created final systems to improve their situation awareness. The two workshops used different approaches: in the first, participants built their own low-fidelity prototypes; in the second, they evaluated and discussed the initial prototypes we provided. We will outline how each workshop was set up and share lessons learned about prototyping methods for BVIPs and how they could be improved.