An Autonomous Driving System - Dedicated Vehicle for People with ASD and their Caregivers
This addresses mobility challenges for people with ASD and their caregivers, but it is incremental as it applies existing design methods to a new user group.
The study tackled the design of an autonomous driving system dedicated vehicle (ADS-DV) for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their caregivers, using a human-centered design process to propose a prototype that preliminary results suggest could improve mobility without worries.
Automated driving system - dedicated vehicles (ADS-DVs), specially designed for people with various disabilities, can be beneficial to improve their mobility. However, research related to autonomous vehicles (AVs) for people with cognitive disabilities, especially Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is limited. Thus, in this study, we focused on the challenge that we framed: "How might we design an ADS-DV that benefits people with ASD and their caregivers?". In order to address the design challenge, we followed the human-centered design process. First, we conducted user research with caregivers of people with ASD. Second, we identified their user needs, including safety, monitoring and updates, individual preferences, comfort, trust, and reliability. Third, we generated a large number of ideas with brainstorming and affinity diagrams, based on which we proposed an ADS-DV prototype with a mobile application and an interior design. Fourth, we tested both the low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes to fix the possible issues. Our preliminary results showed that such an ASD-DV would potentially improve the mobility of those with ASD without worries.