Conscious Driving

Exhibit: Conscious Driving
Venue: Phaeno Science Centre
Location: Wolfsburg, Germany
Date: Opening 2005
Client: Ansel Associates
Contributors: Mystus, Ansel Associates

This exhibit allows the visitor to drive around in a virtual environment using standard controls of steering wheel, throttle and brake. Not too hard right!? But wait, the next time you drive through the controls are swapped around on you; steering controls brakes, brakes controls speed and steering is done with the throttle control. Feel the mental heat in learning new controls especially when you have reflex reactions to work against. For people who don’t drive it’s not as hard.

Visitor Experience: The activity at this exhibit is to let visitors discover the differences in their performance of a familiar activity when using familiar controls and when the controls are new to them. The initial idea is to do this by taking a standard driving activity and scrambling the interface – so that visitors steer with their foot, accelerate using a throttle, etc. Visitors use their familiar controls and then test and compare reaction times, decision skills, etc., when using the new interface.