Designing emotion-aware in-car interactions for unlike markets

Interior cameras and other sensors facilitate affective automotive UIs reacting to the driver's detected emotional state and providing customized support. Previous research mainly presents single prototypes designed in western countries. A comprehensive view of relevant use cases and possible cultural differences between markets, however, is missing. This is particularly important as the significance of emotions is quite different between, e.g., western and eastern cultures. We present use case clusters for affective in-car UIs based on ideation workshops with German and Chinese participants. Our focus lies on the requirements arising from cultural differences, such as more rule-consistent driving in Germany or more important social components in China. Our ideation approach aims to enrich use cases for empathetic vehicles with the user's culture in mind. The use case clusters we present can inspire future concepts for improving user experience through affective interaction and for boosting acceptance by observing cultural peculiarities.