A Personalized Car : A study on how to apply personalization to a driver environment

Sammanfattning: An increasing amount of technology in cars makes new ideas and solutions necessary. This study will explore the idea of a personalized driver environment and investigate possible benefits and drawbacks with such a feature. The study consists of three parts: a pre-study exploring personalization, a survey investigating the attitudes towards personal settings, and finally an interview testing a specific solution. The survey was distributed in USA and Sweden while the interviews were conducted with Swedish subjects. Overall, the concept of a personalized car has been well received. This study has shown that the most requested settings are associated with the driver position, hi-fi system and climate. The study also suggests that feeling in control of the personalization is more important than the benefits associated with automation. The user prefers visible solutions, such as a personal button on the key before hidden (e.g. using a button sequence or a menu system). Such a button promotes the feature while allowing the user to interact with the car in a familiar way. However, since little real user experience exists with such solutions it is important to continue research when further developing personalization of a car.