Autonomous cars: the compelling design case for computer driving

Self-driving cars can solve traffic problems and make journeys faster – but it'll take more than that to sell the wider public on giving up the steering wheel.

A popular topic at past NEXT conferences – and likely to be an issue into the future, self-driving cars remains on the verge of being a presence on our streets.

But, as this video explains incredibly clearly, they really won’t achieve their full potential until everyone’s driving one. Why? Well, there are some things our human brains – our monkey brains as the video terms them – are just terrible at. And those little mistakes all add up – and create the traffic problems that plague anyone that has to commute by car.

Watch and learn:

This is the greatest challenge to making self-driving cars work. Its really hard to sell people on giving up an experience many enjoy: like driving for example.

Perhaps the most compelling way of getting them to make the shift is offering them a better, more enticing experience instead.

And that’s exactly what we’ll be doing in a couple of weeks at Nils Woolly’s session on Designing Experiences that Move.

Selling a technology is more than just explaining the benefits of the technology, it’s selling the experience.