Interaction Design of Closed Dark Cabin Driving Interface Based on Situation Awareness

Purpose: In a closed dark cabin driving environment, the lack of external environmental information leads to a low level of driver situation awareness. At the same time, the design quality of the vehicle terminal interface will directly affect the driver’s situation awareness level during driving. Therefore, this study explores the design of the vehicle terminal interface in a closed dark cabin driving environment as an example, to improve the driver’s perception of the environmental information outside the cabin and the ease of use of the interface. Methods: Through analyzing the constraints and special features of the dark cabin driving environment and the driver’s information perception needs during driving, we explore the key factors affecting the driver’s situation awareness and the pain points of interface design in the dark cabin driving environment, and on this basis, we develop a design method for the dark cabin environment driving interface to improve the driver’s situation awareness by combining relevant design principles. The design method is based on user performance measurement, SART scale and other methods to extract indicators such as completion time, difference from standard time and situation awareness level of drivers to explore the effectiveness of the design method. Conclusion: Through the experimental findings, it can be proved that the design method will effectively enhance the driver’s situation awareness, give full play to the vehicle performance, reduce the driver’s workload during driving, and improve the system performance.