Human centred design

Immersive technologies promise to change many aspects of design and planning processes. Our researchers are developing solutions which ensure that people’s needs are kept at the heart of this process.

The University has the expertise and cutting-edge technology that allows us to evaluate developments to ensure they deliver benefits for business, government and the wider public.

We’ve used immersive technologies to make our roads safer by modelling driver and pedestrian behaviour. Our researchers are using their expertise to design efficient and sustainable cities which meet people's needs. Our expertise in human centred design includes:

• Measuring driver behaviour in response to a variety of road environments using the most advanced driving simulator for academic research in the UK.
• Enabling investigations into simulated interactions between vulnerable road users and heavy good vehicles using our commercial vehicle simulator TruckSIM. Inside TruckSIM, head and eye movements are tracked to determine where the driver is looking inside and outside the cab while driving.
• Investigating how people interact with their environment, such as crossing busy roads. Our Highly Immersive Kinematic Experimental Research (HIKER) pedestrian lab is the largest 4K resolution pedestrian simulation environment in the world.
• Helping local authorities and urban planners design efficient, sustainable and vibrant cities for the future. Our Virtuocity programme is integrating our three simulators to create a complete urban simulation facility. This will create numerous data feeds and models, plus the expertise to evaluate this data. We are building an immersive urban environment capable of measuring realistic interactions between pedestrians, drivers and automated vehicles.