Methods to Promote Increased Usage of Voice Interaction in a Vehicle

As in-vehicle infotainment systems become increasingly complex, and as manufacturers increasingly move functions and features into the in-vehicle screen, interacting with these systems is resulting in increased demand, eyes-off-the-road time, and task completion time. To combat this complexity, some manufacturers have incorporated voice assistants into their vehicles, allowing drivers to speak to their vehicles to perform tasks rather than use touch. However, these assistants currently offer a limited feature set, and are generally passive, requiring manual activation. Here we outline early, but on-going work looking at techniques that can be used to nudge users towards using voice. Participants were presented with 6 prototype in-vehicle infotainment systems (IVIS), which varied in terms of how they nudged participants towards using voice and asked to perform a series of representative in-vehicle tasks. Data shows the most effective method for nudging was automatic activation of the voice assistant when opening the appropriate app, with participants using voice 60% of the time.