Automated Vehicle Communication Design for Pedestrians  

With a current advance in automated vehicles, the integration of a safe interaction between self-driving cars and pedestrians is important to the success of this technology. It is important that pedestrians receive feedback when crossing the street, especially in front of automated vehicles to gain trust in the system.

For this study, thirty different communication designs were tested with 200 Mechanical Turkers to analyze pedestrians ́ willingness to cross the street. The 30 designs were placed on top of the same image and will be used to gain insight into pedestrians ́ emotional experiences and perception of safety to determine if a minimalistic external interface can aid the pedestrian-driver interaction in automated vehicles. We are studying visual perception of colors and symbols to determine if “Turks,” acting as pedestrians, feel it is 1. Safe to Cross 2. Not safe to Cross 3. Uncertain/Ambiguous when looking at the 30 images/animations.

A t-test was used to determine if there was difference between the design intent and Turkers design response. The test results showed that there is a difference. Effective designs showed the importance of color (e.g. green for it's safe to walk) and traditional walk symbols like arrows, walking man, and the word walk. Even though, designs were placed on different parts of the car, results did not reflect a preference to a specific location. However, another study is recommended to test effective designs on different parts of the car.