Designing for Collaborative Non-Driving Related Activities in Future Cars: Fairness and Team Performance

With the gradual transition towards assisted and automated driving, the car will transform into a more social environment where passengers and drivers engage in Non-Driving-Related Activities (NDRA). To support collaboration among occupants in future vehicles, research suggests interactive systems controlled by several users at once. In this paper, we explore five concepts for the collaborative performance of NDRA with the use-case of music playlist creation. While prior work investigated the effect on social connectedness, we expand insights towards team performance and fairness. Results from a mixed-subject experiment (N=27) show that the concepts have major consequences on team performance and fairness. Certain concepts can promote or hinder coordination effectiveness and, in turn, impact intra-vehicular collaboration. Our observations also indicate that fairness is key to fostering social collaboration in AVs, while it does not naturally define a high team performance. Subsequently, we provide recommendations to guide future designs of collaborative NDRAs in vehicles.