User-Centered Design of Land-Air Travel Service: HMI Design Strategies and Challenges

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) contributes to alleviating ground traffic pressure, enhancing traffic efficiency, and promoting sustainable transportation development. The modular design of vehicles, exemplified by Airbus Pop.Up, further improves traffic efficiency. Currently, UAM development is in the preparatory stage, with a research gap in the study of cabin Human-Machine Interface (HMI). Based on the concepts of UAM and modular transportation, this study focuses on the cockpit HMI design for Land-Air Travel Service, referred to as LADUC (Land-Air Dual-Use Cabin) HMI. The research goal is to propose design guidance strategies for the usability and user-friendliness of HMI in LADUC. In the preliminary phase, a combination of field research, desktop research, user studies integrating questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews, along with Work Domain Analysis, was conducted. Based on the acquired user requirements and expectations, a functional architecture diagram for the central control screen and dashboard of LADUC was constructed. Usability tests were conducted in both low-fidelity and high-fidelity stages, with the test results indicating that the system has achieved preliminary usability.