Dr. Luca Maxim Meinhardt, Mitglied der Forschungsgruppe Mensch-Computer-Interaktion, hat seine Dissertation des Titels Special Information Needs in Emerging Automated Transportation Systems erfolgreich verteidigt.
Er wurde begutachtet von Prof. Dr. Enrico Rukzio (Universität Ulm), Prof. Dr. Johannes Schöning (Universität St. Gallen) und Assistant Prof. Dr. Kai Lukoff (Santa Clara University) sowie den benannten Wahlmitgliedern Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ann-Christin Haag (Universitätsklinikum Ulm) und Prof. Dr. Manfred Reichert (Universität Ulm).
Abstrakt
As personal mobility becomes increasingly automated and diverse, the traditional relationship between driver, vehicle, and environment is fundamentally changing. In highly automated transportation systems (ATS), drivers transition from active operators to passive passengers, no longer controlling the vehicle. While automation promises increased safety, this shift also introduces new challenges as passengers have to understand vehicle behavior, assess safety, and develop an appropriate level of trust.
Prior research has shown that insufficient situation awareness can affect trust, particularly in unfamiliar or novel mobility contexts. Here, user interfaces play a central role in addressing this challenge by conveying information from the ATS to the passengers, thereby enhancing their trust. However, existing approaches to interface design for automated transportation often treat information needs as uniform, overlooking the role of vehicle modality, environmental context, and passenger abilities in shaping \textit{how} information should be conveyed. This gap becomes especially evident when considering emerging transportation modalities, such as automated urban air mobility (UAM), or passenger groups with reduced perceptual abilities. To address this gap, this dissertation introduces the Passenger-Vehicle-Environment (PVE) model as a structural framework for guiding how the user interface should adapt based on the vehicle modality, passenger abilities, and environmental/situational context. It explores the three dimensions of the PVE model through six core publications spanning two application domains: interface designs for automated urban air mobility and interfaces for passengers who are blind or visually impaired in highly automated ground vehicles. Using a combination of virtual reality simulations, participatory design workshops, and controlled lab user studies, the dissertation explores predictive trajectory visualizations, multimodal interfaces, and non-visual interaction techniques for conveying system states, intentions, and potential hazards.
Synthesizing the findings from the core publications provides user interface design implications from each PVE dimension's perspective. Along the \textit{vehicle} dimension, interface design should account for the inherent reference infrastructure of the ATS. While ground-based systems benefit from perceptual anchors like roads or rails, air taxis operate in unconstrained three-dimensional space. Hence, interfaces should compensate for the absence of reference by conveying predictive trajectory visualization.
Along the \textit{passenger} dimension, trust depends on tailoring information conveyance to their perceptual and cognitive abilities. Expert users, such as pilots, benefit from dense technical information, whereas inexperienced passengers benefit from simplified, abstracted information. Trust is enhanced when information can be requested on demand and conveyed across multiple modalities, providing redundancy across sensory channels and accommodating individual perceptual abilities. For example, this is useful in the context of visual impairment.
Along the \textit{environment} dimension, information needs shift with situational demand: ordinary situations may require only minimal feedback, whereas adverse weather, emergencies, and complex environments call for richer, more explanatory, and multimodal information to maintain perceived safety and trust.
Overall, the synthesized findings of this dissertation offer implications for designing adaptive passenger interfaces that foster trust across different types of ATSs, abilities, and environmental contexts.
Das Institut wünscht ihm herzlichst alles Gute - auch auf seinem weiteren Werdegang.
