Shape-Changing Interfaces in the Automotive Context: A Taxonomy to Aid the Systematic Development of Intuitive Gesture-Based eHMIs

Abstract

This paper presents a structured framework of automotive shape-changing interfaces, which can act as a guide for researchers and practitioners in the automotive user interface domain towards designing for interactions between vulnerable road users (VRU) and automated vehicles (AV). Recent research in external human-machine interfaces (eHMI) for facilitating AV-VRU interactions have looked into the potential of external shape-change (eSC) as a means of intuitive communication of an AV’s intent, and calls for more structured design explorations. To systematize this unstructured design space, this paper presents an overview of how shape-change is currently implemented and executed in the automotive context, for communication purposes and beyond. The paper has two contributions: (1) an examination of the state-of-the-art of automotive shape-changing interfaces, and (2) a reusable taxonomy which can be used to structure the design space and identify the potentials of shape-changing interfaces towards more intuitive eHMIs.