QuEASY: A tilting interface to alleviate vehicle-induced motion sickness in passengers

Abstract

Motion sickness in vehicles is elevated when passengers perform visual tasks. These tasks include reading, messaging, and navigating; while the increase in the number of autonomous vehicles liberates people from driving, today’s busy lifestyles create a need for passengers to perform these tasks during their commute. quEASY is a tilting software interface that helps reduce passengers’ motion sickness while they perform tasks on their digital devices. The concept of tilting the user’s head in sync with the car’s lateral acceleration proves to be effective in reducing motion sickness. Our prototype pushes lateral acceleration values (Y-axis g-force, from an Adafruit board) to a Python application that converts the obtained data into a tilt angle incorporated into the interface. User-testing proved that the concept holds true, while it points to issues in the user adapting to the new design changes in the usage of a novel interface. While further testing is needed, quEASY has the potential to be a significant relief for those who experience motion sickness while in a moving vehicle.