Empowering Driver-Passenger Collaboration: Designing In-Car Systems with a focus on Social Connectedness, Fairness, and Team Performance

Driving a car can be difficult when it comes to distractions caused by operating the in-vehicle infotainment system (IVIS). In-car passengers often help with performing IVIS-related tasks. However, an IVIS is often not designed with a focus on task collaboration. In this article, we focus on how to design in-car systems with the goal to support collaboration between a driver and a front-seat passenger. Based on infotainment-oriented tasks, we initially explore five key collaborative control concepts by means of an IVIS which differ from each other in terms of the number of available IVIS screens (one or two), access to menus (restricted and unrestricted), and the nature of performing tasks in parallel or one after the other. Results from a simulator study with N = 16 pairs show significant effects of the concepts on social collaboration in terms of perceived social connectedness (measured with sub-dimensions connectedness, affiliation, belongingness, companionship), team performance (coordination effectiveness and team cohesion), and fairness. We found that especially a dedicated passenger IVIS screen empowers front-seat passengers, reduces power dynamics, supports fairness, and minimizes driver distraction (caused by interacting passengers). We discuss the implications of these findings and posit recommendations to design future IVIS in passenger cars with improved driver-passenger collaboration by explicitly designing for balanced power roles, situational awareness, active communication, and a balance between drivers’ privacy and trust toward the passenger. Additionally, we outline a systematic overview of future work to explore the research field of driver-passenger collaboration in more breadth and depth.