Owner 

Maria Luce Lupetti

Finished on

2022

Context

Driving automation technologies development and implementation

Purpose

We designed a set of four provocative steering wheels shaped as allegorical representations of alternative perspectives towards driving automation. We characterized them with features that would generate cognitive estrangement and sustain ambiguity. Each artifact builds on the emblematic element of the steering wheel and hints at a specific narrative through distinct design features: spikes, crutches, handcuffs, and table-like surface. Despite the differences, all artifacts suggest an underlying narrative of driving automation as an implicit trade-off between driving comfort and safety, as if these were directly (or inversely) proportional to the amount of control over the steering task. In this way, we purposefully suggest a reductionist and controversial idea that comfort is associated with safety, with the intention to provoke debate. We developed the four artifacts in three alternative versions: visual representations; tangible (3D printed) but non-experiential artifacts; and tangible (3D printed) experiential artifacts as add-ons on a driving simulator.

Learnings

We used these provocative artifacts within the context of focus groups to explore stakeholders’ understanding and reasoning about driving automation and to learn if these can be affected by being exposed to these artifacts. The focus groups revealed that stakeholder discussions tend to initially map to dominant narratives but diverge over the course of the activity, surfacing relevant narrative tensions in the argumentations of why we should strive or not towards driving automation. In this, the provocative artifact distinctively promoted discussions that were not solely critical, but also generative as these helped envision a concept of human-vehicle interaction as bargaining partners. As such, this work contributes to the design disciplinary commitment to finding ways for opening up opportunities for confrontation and contestation, as a way towards democratic development of technology.