Reinventing the (steering) wheel: a kansei design approach for novel driving experience

Over the last decades, the integration of digital technology in the automotive industry has caused important transformations for interaction design in regards with secondary controls, but much less in regards with primary controls. However, not only primary controls remain the dominant artefact to interact with in the driving experience, but also distracted drivers (i.e., interacting with secondary controls or other artefacts while driving) are a major reason of accidents. In this paper, we introduce a design project on the steering wheel, taken from a kansei design perspective. Based on a kansei design framework, structured by three stages (Expression, Gesture, Affect), we observed the way drivers interact with various forms of steering wheel in order to create design propositions for greater and safer driving experiences in the context of novel driving conditions, i.e., with novel technologies and recent driving techniques. This overall project aims at revisiting fully the driving experience, while inquiring further the framing of a direct kansei design approach.