Augmented Reality Emergency Vehicle Detection for GM
I led a team focused on developing accessible-born vehicle features, including dynamic notifications using an Augmented Reality Head Up Display that alerts drivers to the location of nearby emergency vehicles.
Accessible-Born Innovation
Accessible solutions are designed with a wide range of abilities in mind from the start, resulting in better outcomes for all users. In this project, I led a team to create a feature based on the needs of D/deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. I’m particularly proud of this feature because it demonstrates how inclusive design benefits everyone.
*Final UI Design cannot be shown due to IP restrictions.
Empathy Research
I intentionally started this project with empathy research so our team could really listen to the needs of our customers before ideation. Six individuals were interviewed 1:1 to better understand their experiences driving:
3 D/deaf participants (one with a cochlear implant)
3 hard of hearing participants
I mentored my team in aggregating pain points to understand where there were opportunities to innovate:
It was a universal concern that important sounds may be missed and where they were located. D/deaf drivers knew to pull over for an ambulance when they see other drivers pulling over.
D/deaf individuals take pride in being excellent drivers (which is also statistically true). They are hyper-vigilant to compensate for their lack of hearing when driving.
Simply telling the driver there is an emergency vehicle nearby is helpful, but not ideal.
Being notified of other types of sounds could be useful, too, including vehicle maintenance sounds, children playing outside, horns honking, trains, etc.
Iteration with Feedback
We then worked as a team to iterate based on the qualitative data collected from our participants. After creating some preliminary designs, we went back to our participants and sought feedback to make sure they were effective solutions.
A couple insights included:
Visual notifications in the driver’s line-of-sight were preferred but haptic alerts were also considered to be useful as an additional measure (if opted-in).
The ability to select which sounds it detects is also important so a noisy city doesn’t turn into an unnecessary barrage of notifications.
This concept led to
a granted patent!
Patent summary: Using an array of microphones, the location and classification of an audio event (e.g., an emergency vehicle siren) can be displayed dynamically to the driver using Augmented Reality in the Head-Up Display of a vehicle.