The (Mobile) Driving Experience Lab: Bridging Research and Knowledge Transfer to the General Public

In interdisciplinary human-computer interaction (HCI) research, user studies are essential. Due to easy attainability, flexible schedules, etc., these studies are primarily conducted with students. Depending on the application, however, this often does not yield results that are representative of the respective target group(s). Getting these to the, e.g., driving simulator is tedious, time-consuming, and costly. To address this issue, we have integrated a driving simulator mockup into a trailer to bring the lab directly to the target groups. It allows researchers to diversify their samples for research studies. In addition, the lab can also be used for a broad knowledge transfer to society. We hypothesize that academics and practitioners will benefit from having easy access to the general public as well as specific target groups by reducing the barrier to study participation. In this paper, we outline the development steps for this lab, present its core features, and discuss potential applications.