Home // International Journal On Advances in Intelligent Systems, volume 9, numbers 3 and 4, 2016 // View article


Iterative Evaluation of a Driver Assistant Client in ICT-Systems in the Context of Urban Logistics and Electric Vehicles

Authors:
Johan Buchholz
Sebastian Apel
Christian Stolcis
Volkmar Schau

Keywords: Usability; Electric Vehicles; Simulated Environment

Abstract:
Information and communication technology (ICT) systems for electric vehicles (EVs), which support planning, monitoring and analysing urban area logistics can become complex and difficult to use. In Smart City Logistik (SCL) project a driver assistant client (DAC) was developed to help to overcome fears, limited information and uncertainty in the context of urban logistics. To evaluate the users’ needs and intentions an iterative and open approach was designed and consequently used. Triangulation helped to get the best possible insights out of each of three phases of development, and the findings were used to improve the DAC. A lot of uncertainty accompanied the beginning of the project, so qualitative information was gathered to understand how the drivers work routines look like and which attitudes towards new technologies prevailed. A more quantitative approach helped to collect a broad range of opinions on specific usability topics before a final simulated system setup contributes to ask a wide variety of users their experiences. This agile and iterative approach helped to identify important aspects while designing the DAC and compare different solutions, e.g., regarding necessary functionalities, menu-structure, font, button- size, and other parameters. The implementation of these findings enabled the project partners to develop a broadly accepted user interface and system that will be used in electric vehicles in urban logistics.

Pages: 507 to 513

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2016. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 31, 2016

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2679