Modelling scenarios on driving simulators is a critical and complex task for behavioural researchers. It requires specific technical and programming skills, for which researchers are typically not formally trained. The main reason for this complexity is the lack of User-Centred Design (UCD) in scenario authoring tools, including an unintuitive and user-unfriendly interaction environment. This could account for some of the challenges faced by behavioural researchers in achieving their objectives with driving simulators. In this chapter, we discuss the problem in detail and propose a user-centred solution, which has been evaluated by users. We also propose a meta-language and an interoperability framework to generalise our solution, so that our approach could be used on most driving simulators.

Chapter Contents:

• Abstract
• 14.1 Introduction
• 14.2 What is a driving simulator scenario?
• 14.2.1 Scenario modelling systems
• 14.2.2 Challenges with programming and authoring tools
• 14.2.3 User-centred design in scenario authoring tools
• 14.3 Method
• 14.4 User survey
• 14.4.1 Results of the user survey
• 14.5 Proposed solution
• 14.5.1 Multi-layer programming
• 14.5.2 User-interface development
• 14.6 Prototype building
• 14.7 Prototype evaluation
• 14.8 Interoperability of the approach
• 14.8.1 Development of the meta-language
• 14.8.2 Interoperability framework
• 14.9 Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• References

Inspec keywords: open systems; user centred design; authoring systems; traffic engineering computing; digital simulation

Other keywords: user-centred design approach; driving simulators; behavioural researchers; authoring tools; UCD; interoperability framework; meta-language

Subjects: Distributed systems software; Traffic engineering computing; Systems analysis and programming