Abstract
Keywords - Steering-wheel, Usability, By-wire, Evaluation, Users.
Abstract - The complexity of the present and future on-board electronic devices may be critical with respect to usability and mental workload. As a matter of fact, the new electronic way of implementation provides manufacturers with the possibility of re-design the cabin, the dashboard and the driving controls.
Cars with steering-wheel controls to operate both primary (sequential gear) and secondary (radio, ) functions are already on the market. Moreover, among concept cars several examples of new kinds of devices, as cloches or joysticks, can be found; drivers can use them instead of traditional controls and drive without getting the hands off the steering-wheel. In order to cope with this complexity, CRF has followed the User-centered design approach. It mainly consists in the involvement of final users ("drivers") from the very early designing phases. Different design concepts are tested by users with the aim to select the most appropriate ones, taking into account their needs.
In this paper, the first phase of this iterative process will be described. During it, a qualitative users evaluation has been performed with the aim to collect their attitudes towards these new primary controls.
Evaluation objectives were to understand users expectancies towards these new kind of controls; to collect their opinions after the actual interaction with them; to understand push-buttons icons' intelligibility and activation mode usability. The test concerned six different steering-wheels prototypes and a traditional steering-wheel (used as a baseline for users evaluations). The steering-wheels were different according to shape, but each has been designed in order to have the same functionalities; the same for the traditional steering-wheel. Users were both males and females and the experimental procedure requested them to drive a simulator using the different steering-wheels and activating their commands. Qualitative and observational data were recorded through different techniques (questionnaires, observational grids, audio and video-recording of hands positions and movements).