Do users desire gestures for in-vehicle interaction? Towards the subjective assessment of gestures in a high-fidelity driving simulator

Distracted driving is a major contributing factor to road crashes and is, therefore, an important topic within the field of driving safety. The performance of secondary tasks while driving can lead to distraction, as does the use of functions in the vehicle. Traditional interaction modes like haptic buttons or touch displays require the driver to visually search for the respective items to press or touch. Therefore, modern interaction modes should assess the level of distraction being caused. Previous studies revealed shorter and fewer glances away from the street scenery when using gesture-based interaction. These findings raise hope that driver distraction can be diminished through the use of these features. Of course, one must consider not only those objective parameters but also subjective parameters in order to determine if users will use a system. This study compares gesture-based interaction with touch-based interaction. Participants drove in a high-fidelity driving simulator that used a real vehicle driving on a test track, which allowed for a realistic driving impression. They were asked to rate their subjective impression of both interaction types in terms of acceptance, attractivity, trust and workload. We observed that all parameters were rated more positively when using gestures compared to touch. Therefore, we assume that the use of gestures for in-vehicle interaction seems to be attractive to users.