Visualizing Turnability Affordance Enhances Drivers’ Maneuvers
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: While the design of advanced driver assistance systems is of concern to all car manufacturers today, nothing has yet been devised to facilitate forward tight-turn maneuvers. The handling capabilities of cars in forward gear are limited. This suggests that turns are controlled by an affordance-based mechanism and that it would be possible to assist drivers by allowing them to visualize these affordances in a new interface using the ecological interface design approach. We formalized the possibilities of making a tight turn to enter a narrow orthogonal alleyway as an affordance and designed a visual dashboard interface that makes it visible. In a fixed-base driving simulator, we investigated whether drivers could benefit from this new interface to improve their decision-making and control of the turn. Three groups of drivers controlled the steering of low-, standard-, and high-handling cars at a constant speed onto a narrow orthogonal alleyway. We manipulated the required path curvature of the turn. In half of the trials, drivers were assisted by our interface. Without the interface, drivers did not fully perceive the possibility of turning toward the alleyway. With the interface, drivers reduced the number of collisions and failed turn attempts when turns were not possible, and otherwise maximized successful turn maneuvers. We discuss the benefits of the ecological interface for improving decision-making and control of turning maneuvers and propose perspectives on implementing such interface in real-life situations.
Authors: Emilie Dubuisson, Antoine H. P. Morice
Institution: Aix-Marseille Université
Language: English
Subfield: Human Factors and Ergonomics
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7162014252