Exploration of Older Drivers Interaction with Conversation Assistant

The number of older drivers will be increasing therefore, their needs and requirements need to be taken into account when designing in-car user interfaces. Current solutions in car industry tend to use big touch screens for controlling the secondary tasks, such as navigation. These solutions are proved to be very distracting while driving. We present a design of conversational assistant for older drivers to improve secondary-task performance, help with decision making in primary tasks with reduced stress. We conducted a user study in the laboratory (N=7) and gained initial knowledge about how the conversational assistant should support older drivers in secondary tasks. Our exploration revealed potential opportunities for the future design of such in-car assistants.