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Contact person
Dr. phil. Stefan Ladwig
Manager Research Area Traffic Psychology & Acceptance
+49 241 80 23888
Email
Presentations/ Articles
View list of articles and presentations of the Research Area "Traffic Psychology & Acceptance".
Equipment
Find out more about our testing equipment and facilities.
Student Theses
View open vacancies for student theses in the “User Experience” department.
Flyer
Download our flyer with our fields of activity, informations and contacts.
Reference Projects
Fields of Activity
| Psychological research |
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|---|---|
| Methods |
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| User infrastucture interaction |
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| Customer satisfaction |
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| Education |
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General Information
Automobiles have grown to become one of the most complex and expensive consumer products of our life. Due to the ongoing development of technological innovations such as driver information and assistance systems, drivers are constantly confronted with a continuously growing variety of new functions. This inevitably leads to constant increase of the complexity of presented information, displays and controls within a vehicle. Furthermore, the introduction of innovations such as e-mobility or C2X communications, are directly linked to a further increase of complexity due to diver’s interactions with the infrastructure and the environment.
Considering these rapidly growing technological advances, technical restrictions are no longer the only limiting factor within the context of development and realization of innovative technologies. Much rather, today, the user’s understanding and the acceptance of these technical advances are of crucial importance when introducing new products to the market. Especially at the earliest stages of a product development cycle the central question must be “what does the user expect from the technology and what is he asking for?”
The successful introduction of new functions and technologies require a consistent integration of users during the whole development process. The overall goal is to optimize a vehicle as a system that is convenient, efficient and safe to use and meets the true user-requirements. With the department User Experience the ika offers the necessary competences for these issues.
The department User Experience offers the psychological competences, tools and processes to evaluate planned or existing technologies towards users experience, acceptance, efficiency as well as safety during the product development process.
In close cooperation with fellow departments of the ika, the department of User Experience provides the entire spectrum of empirical testing, ranging from planning and technical realizations to statistical analyzes, interpretation and documentation of user studies. For the realization of these studies the ika provides test tracks in order to conduct valid real-life driving tasks as well as a dynamic driving simulator to conduct replicable and secure simulations of driving and traffic situations.
Strategy & Consulting
Fields of Activity
- Technology studies
- Market analysis
- Patent research
- Political consulting
- Project management
- Technology transfer
General information
The Strategy and Consulting department provides product-related and implementation oriented strategies. By means of strategical expertise and inclusion of its technical competences, ika develops practical strategies for the design of products and processes. Methods for complex issues are chosen specifically, based on the respective task.
The range of services comprises the following key topics:
Technology studies, market analysis and patent research for the automotive industry (OEM, supplier), and political consulting in the automotive context.
Within the framework of a technology study i. e. product portfolio strategies are being derived, on basis of a corresponding evaluation of automotive components, sub systems, or total systems. The scope extends from research-based technology trend-analysis to simulation of optimum component and system solutions for each market or application case.
In the context of branch specific market analysis, the client is provided with target-oriented product planning-related recommendations for action to achieve joint development of concrete regional and global strategies. For this purpose, market studies on automotive developments are conducted, taking both client-specific and legislative requirements into account. Applied methods are e. g. scenario analysis or target customer surveys. Beside the market-based view, patent research with in-house tools regarding automotive components or total systems complete the analysis of the technical and competitive situation.
Political consulting completes the department’s range of services. Within automotive-specific studies, short-, medium-, and long term strategies are developed in a political context.
In conjunction with consultancy assistance, automotive-related market and technology studies are created together with business consultancies on a regular basis. Furthermore, within operative project support for automotive-related customer projects the respective teams on-site are purposefully reinforced by involving staff of ika.
In large, comprehensive development projects, target-oriented communication with one central contact for the customer ensures optimum project processing. Structured project management resolves the target conflict between schedule, budget, and performance.
