Passenger’s State of Mind: Future Narratives for Semi-Autonomous Cars Güzin Sen Middle East Technical University guzinsen@metu.edu.tr Sila Umulu Middle East Technical University umulu@metu.edu.tr ABSTRACT This online workshop invites participants to elaborate the infotain- ment systems of semi-autonomous cars with passengers’ priorities in mind and develop quick auto-UI solutions by utilizing łpas- senger infotainment modesž. These modes represent a front-seat passenger’s changing relations with the driver, the surroundings, and the infotainment system. There can be various strategies for an automotive user interface to adapt to these diverse situations where the passenger prioritizes one agent over the other (e.g., co- navigating with the driver, enjoying the scenery without being interrupted by the system notifcations, being immersed in a pri- vate bubble of entertainment). The workshop provides each team of participants with a future travel scenario and encourages them to enhance its narrative by defning possible activities or tasks de- livered through automotive infotainment systems. Finally, these narratives are enriched further by addressing a selection of the passenger infotainment modes with new proposals for the auto-UI content, functionalities, or interactions. CCS CONCEPTS · Human-centered computing → Interaction design; Interaction design process and methods; Scenario-based design. KEYWORDS Infotainment Systems, Passenger Experience, Autonomous Driving, Scenario Building ACM Reference Format: Güzin Sen and Sila Umulu. 2021. Passenger’s State of Mind: Future Narra- tives for Semi-Autonomous Cars. In 13th International Conference on Auto- motive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI ’21 Adjunct), September 09–14, 2021, Leeds, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3473682.3478679 1 INTRODUCTION With the introduction of autonomous driving, we expect a sig- nifcant shift in drivers’ role in the car; initially towards being ‘passengers-in-control’ in partially and conditionally automated vehicles (SAE Levels 2-3), and then ‘passengers of autonomous cars’ (SAE Levels-3-4-5) [1]. Accordingly, we observe a shift in auto- motive infotainment system concepts towards passenger-oriented solutions [2], as there emerged a need to replace the driving task Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the frst page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). AutomotiveUI ’21 Adjunct, September 09–14, 2021, Leeds, United Kingdom © 2021 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-8641-8/21/09. https://doi.org/10.1145/3473682.3478679 with other activities enabling ‘drivers’ to make use of the time spent in journeys. Regardless of the research agenda set by autonomous driving, there are studies probing passengers’ involvement in the use of in-vehicle information or entertainment systems, either un- der the specifc theme of passenger-driver collaboration [3ś7], or enhancement of passenger experience in general [8ś11]. In these studies, the measures of a positive passenger experience are dis- cussed through łreduced boredomž, łincreased trustž, łincreased sense of inclusionž [9], łinvolvementž, łincreased level of controlž [6, 7], and łactive, refective, and social passengeringž [10]. Sen and Sener [12] also confrm and detail these measures by listing the passenger expectations from automotive infotainment systems as preventing the driver and passenger distraction, staying updated to sustain the options for stimulation, making the passenger feel involved in the journey, facilitating the communication and collab- oration with all car occupants and enabling the passenger’s connec- tion to his/her social network. The same study also underlines the fuidity and changing hierarchy of these expectations. It provides a series of modes (as introduced here as łpassenger infotainment modesž) representing the front-seat passenger’s changing relations with the driver, the car surroundings, and the infotainment system (Figure 1). Each mode points outs several strategies for the auto-UI system to adapt to the conditions where the passenger prioritizes one ac- tor/component of the experience over the other (See Sections1.1 and1.2) [12]. The frst group of modes focuses on the relations among the passenger, the infotainment system, and the car sur- roundings, whereas the latter investigates the driver’s involvement in the passenger’s infotainment experience. They are developed initially for non-autonomous cars by targeting the front-seat pas- senger. However, in a vehicle with partial or conditional automation [1], the modes in the frst group may also apply to the driver when he/she acts as the passenger-in-control. Similarly, the modes de- fned for the driver’s involvement would stay relevant until driving requires no human interaction. 1.1 Front-seat passenger - infotainment system - surroundings 1.1.1 Priority on the Infotainment System. There are situations where the passengers would like to create their private bubble of infotainment. This mode suggests immersive entertainment op- tions, more dominant head-up display visuals (increased size and opaqueness), or less frequent notifcations. 1.1.2 Priority on Both the Infotainment System and the Surround- ings. In this mode, the passengers would also like to pay attention to the journey while interacting with the system. It is possible through integrating the surroundings (both as the content and the context) into the infotainment interactions, such as location-based 182