Deriving Personas to Inform HMI Design for Future Autonomous Taxis: A Case Study on User- Requirement Elicitation

Hallewell, Madeline J; Hughes, Nancy; Large, David R; Harvey, Catherine; Springthorpe, James; Burnett, Gary

Abstract

Automated, Mobility-as-a-Service Vehicles (AV-MaaSs) – Autonomous Taxis - are expected to offer an inexpensive, mobility-on-demand service supporting greater sustainable transportation systems, including ‘last mile’ solutions. However, to date little is understood about how different people - whose needs and requirements may vary considerably - will best be supported to use these vehicles when there is no human driver/operative present to mediate or support them. Aiming to capture users’ experiences from existing taxi services and apply these in the context of an AV-MaaS, we conducted a series of interviews with 35 taxi users, with different usability/accessibility needs. This was enriched by relevant literature. The information gathered from both activities informed the creation of eight unique “personas”, illustrating potential end-users of the service, and thirteen unique “scenarios”, depicting and encompassing current taxi usage. The personas and scenarios were subsequently used to highlight potential Human Machine Interface (HMI) issues which need to be considered for a driverless mobility service, which then informed the development of key user-requirements for HMI design and service type models. Specific user-requirements were elicited and categorised using a requirements template. This paper presents an overview of personas and scenarios, and the process by which they were derived, and provides a case study of how key user-requirements and service types were subsequently elicited from these persona-scenarios. The work is important to ensure that AV-MaaSs successfully meet the as-yet unknown needs of end-users and offer usability for all.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 6, 2021
• Deposit Date: Dec 7, 2021
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6910893