Autonomous Vehicles for Children with Mild Intellectual Disability

Self-driving buses will be part of the public transportation system of the future, and they must therefore be accessible to all. The study reported in this paper examines the user experiences of 16 children with mild intellectual disability riding a self-driving bus. The qualitative analysis, performed by iterative affinity diagramming, of interviews, observations, and a co-design session with five of the children, suggests that familiar situations were characterized by contemplation and curiosity, while unfamiliar ones were characterized by surprise or confusion. The temporal structure of past, present, and future situations in the field of attention played a significant role in the children's experiences. This leads to design considerations for an explainable interior of self-driving buses.