Evaluation of design properties of electric and combustion cars based on eye tracking

Abstract

The current transition to the electric car by all users is advancing steadily, and hence the design of these products occupies a prominent place in the car design sector. Likewise, the user experience is one of the determining aspects for the choice of a model. The main objective of this work is to determine, through eye tracking, which areas of an image (in this case, images of the front of cars) are more influential in the perception of the vehicle as either electric or combustion-powered, by segmenting the most important areas of a vehicle and users’ perceptions thereof according to gender and other socio-demographic variables. This work provides an experimental design and a way to analyse and draw conclusions from an oculometry study for vehicles, as well as an initial design briefing for the generation of the visual identity of electric vehicles based on the perception of users for different elements of the vehicle. A methodology is proposed that includes the use of tools such as ANOVAs, eye-tracking, heat maps, tracking maps and fixation times. Through this data it is possible to develop optimal designs aligned with the user's perception.

KEYWORDS:

• Eye tracking
• electric car
• design elements
• aesthetics
• styling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by the GOYA – Antonio Unanue in Engineering in the Agrifood Industry Chair of the University of Seville (Spain) and the VII Research and Transfer Plan 2023 of the University of Seville [Projects 2023/00000378 and 2023/00000390].