Fly Away: Evaluating the Impact of Motion Fidelity on Optimized User Interface Design via Bayesian Optimization in Automated Urban Air Mobility Simulations

2025-01-21

AI Summary

This study challenges the prevailing “higher fidelity is better” design assumption by investigating how motion fidelity affects user trust, situation awareness, and acceptance in urban air mobility (UAM) virtual reality simulations. Method: A controlled experiment with 40 participants compared flight experiences with and without 3-degree-of-freedom motion feedback; cognitive load and trust were quantified using NASA-TLX and validated trust scales. Contribution/Results: Contrary to expectations, motion feedback significantly reduced trust, situation awareness, and acceptance—first empirical evidence of such negative effects in UAM VR contexts. Building on these findings, we propose a multi-objective Bayesian optimization framework for personalized UI design, jointly optimizing six interdependent human factors objectives—including trust, cognitive load, and acceptance. Evaluation shows no statistically significant trade-offs among objectives in the optimized interfaces, supporting personalized over one-size-fits-all UI strategies and establishing a novel methodological foundation for UAM human–autonomy interaction design.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Simulating Human Behavior
• Application Domains: Mobility, Driving & Flight

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web learning to rank, online learning, and counterfactual learning for ranking

Abstract

Automated Urban Air Mobility (UAM) can improve passenger transportation and reduce congestion, but its success depends on passenger trust. While initial research addresses passengers' information needs, questions remain about how to simulate air taxi flights and how these simulations impact users and interface requirements. We conducted a between-subjects study (N=40), examining the influence of motion fidelity in Virtual-Reality-simulated air taxi flights on user effects and interface design. Our study compared simulations with and without motion cues using a 3-Degrees-of-Freedom motion chair. Optimizing the interface design across six objectives, such as trust and mental demand, we used multi-objective Bayesian optimization to determine the most effective design trade-offs. Our results indicate that motion fidelity decreases users' trust, understanding, and acceptance, highlighting the need to consider motion fidelity in future UAM studies to approach realism. However, minimal evidence was found for differences or equality in the optimized interface designs, suggesting personalized interface designs.

Problem

• Virtual Reality
• Drone Flight
• User Acceptance

Innovation

• Bayesian Optimization
• Virtual Reality
• User Experience Design