The impact of visual user interfaces on drivers’ understanding of driving control mode and hands-on steering wheel requirement in Level 2 automated vehicles
DOI: 10.1016/j.trf.2024.12.006
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Summary
This study investigates how visual user interfaces (UIs) in SAE Level 2 automated vehicles influence drivers’ understanding of driving control modes and the requirement to keep hands on the steering wheel. The research addresses the problem of "mode confusion," where drivers misinterpret the division of responsibilities between the automation system and themselves, potentially leading to unsafe driving behaviors. Specifically, the authors examine whether UIs displaying Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) activation effectively communicate who controls speed, distance, and steering, and whether UIs explicitly indicating the hands-on steering wheel requirement improve driver compliance and understanding. The methodology involved an online questionnaire administered to 1,080 respondents with prior experience using SAE Level 2 systems. The researchers first analyzed 23 commercial vehicle UIs to identify common design patterns, then generated 45 distinct visual UI combinations. These combinations varied across three factors: three types of ACC UIs (displaying gap via blocks, carpet, or no gap), five types of LKA UIs (varying lane and steering wheel representations), and three types of hands-on steering wheel UIs (icon with text, icon only, or no UI). Participants were randomly assigned to one UI condition and asked to evaluate their understanding of control responsibilities, information usability, and trust in the automation. Statistical analyses, including nominal logistic regression and ANOVA, were used to assess the impact of UI variations on these outcomes. The results indicate that UIs for ACC and LKA had no significant effect on drivers’ understanding of speed, distance, or steering control. Responses showed high variance, suggesting widespread confusion regarding task sharing; for instance, over 18% of respondents incorrectly believed they were fully responsible for steering, while over 30% incorrectly believed the car was fully responsible for speed and distance control. In contrast, the hands-on steering wheel UI significantly improved understanding. The UI combining a hands-on-wheel icon with the text “Keep hands on steering wheel” yielded the highest correct understanding rate (94.4%), outperforming the icon-only UI (87.8%) and the condition with no specific UI (82.5%). Additionally, the presence of the hands-on steering wheel UI influenced perceptions of steering control, increasing the likelihood that drivers recognized their responsibility for steering. Visual UI variations did not significantly affect trust in the automation. The study concludes that while current ACC and LKA visualizations fail to clarify control responsibilities, explicit UIs combining icons and text are effective for communicating the hands-on steering wheel requirement. The findings highlight a critical gap in current automotive design: drivers struggle to understand the nuanced division of labor in Level 2 automation, leading to mode ambiguity. The authors imply that future UI designs must prioritize clear, unambiguous communication of driver responsibilities, particularly regarding manual intervention requirements, to mitigate mode confusion and enhance safety.
Key finding
Visual user interfaces explicitly combining an icon and text to indicate the hands-on steering wheel requirement significantly improved drivers' correct understanding of this responsibility, whereas UIs for ACC and LKA activation did not significantly affect understanding of speed or steering control.
Methodology
survey
Sample size: 1080
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via scout_discovery on 2026-05-08.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | partial | scout | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-08 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 4 | 2026-06-06 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-08 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Applied Guidance: design guidelines
- Theoretical Contribution: conceptual framework