Design and Validation of Vehicle UX for Driving Comfort Enhancement

Background The driver's psychological state while driving directly influences key aspects of driving performance, including attention, judgment, and reaction speed. Negative emotions such as anxiety, stress, and confusion can heighten the risk of accidents, while excessive relaxation may lead to dangers such as drowsy driving. In this context, supporting drivers in maintaining a state of psychological comfort while driving emerges as a critical factor closely tied to road safety. Accordingly, this study proposed five UX design concepts for driving comfort enhancement and verified their usefulness. Methods This study was conducted in four stages. First, we derived the definition and structure of driving comfort through literature research. Second, we benchmarked existing vehicle comfort-related functions and identified requirements based on actual driving experiences through semi-structured interviews with experienced drivers. Third, based on a customer journey map, we brainstormed to generate multiple ideas and selected five core comfort-supporting user experience (UX) design concepts (Happy calm, Smart ambient light, Head-up display (HUD) lane-width guide, Smart room mirror, and Sliding sun visor). Fourth, we implemented the concepts in a unity-based simulator environment and experimentally verified the comfort effects through galvanic skin response (GSR) and subjective evaluations. Results The experimental results showed that under conditions where the comfort-supporting UX design was applied, the arousal levels of the participants were significantly lower and more stable in terms of GSR and skin conductance response (SCR) indicators, and the stress recovery time was also shortened. In the subjective comfort evaluation, the scores were significantly higher when the UX design was applied. Notably, the sliding sun visor and HUD lane-width guide received the most positive responses in the user usefulness assessment. Conclusions This study establishes the concept of driving comfort through literature review and empirically demonstrates the effectiveness of comfort support strategies that integrate various approaches such as emotion regulation, cognitive load reduction, and situational awareness support. Future research is needed to verify long-term effects in real road environments and to develop personalized UX strategies tailored to individual drivers.