Design Guidelines of an Inclusive Fully Autonomous Vehicle System and Interactions for Older People

Abstract

The aging population is a significant global challenge. As the older population continues to grow, mobility issues faced by older adults are exacerbated by physical and cognitive difficulties associated with aging. Fully Autonomous Vehicles (FAVs) are proposed as a potential solution to address these mobility challenges and offer enhanced accessibility and independence to older people. However, current FAV research often lacks sufficient focus on effectively engaging older people, fostering their familiarity and trust with new technologies, and ensuring their comfort when using FAVs. These shortcomings highlight the need for an accessible, user-friendly design approach tailored to older people who wish to use FAVs. This study aims to develop design guidelines for future inclusive FAV transportation, utilizing intuitive and affordance-based UX/UI design principles and services that consider the specific characteristics and needs of older users. Furthermore, these guidelines will serve as a foundation for developing inclusive FAV design tools, assisting designers in creating accessible transportation solutions, and providing essential data for future development of FAVs tailored for older people. To ensure the research's robustness, this thesis will incorporate various design principles and supporting case studies.