Shift-by -wire technology enables new gear shifter designs in cars. Highly innovative gear shifter designs might confuse drivers and have a negative impact on usability. However, new designs might also be more intuitive and easy to use. The purpose of the study was to identify possible usability profits and concerns with different types of gear shifters with shift-by -wire technology during natural interaction, as in a car rental scenario. Four gear shifter types were tested: a button, rotary, joystick, and a stalk shifter, from a usability perspective. The joystick shifter was the most preferred shifter, it felt familiar. The button shifter was the easiest to understand and use. The rotary shifter had also high ease of use apart from one task, the activation of the manual driving mode. The stalk shifter was the least preferred and also the most difficult to use

Shift-by-wire gear shifters are increasing the opportunities for individualization of functions and design. Though, greater variations can make gear shifters inefficient and error prone. Research regarding these aspects is still lacking. The aim of this study was to investigate how different gear shifter concepts were perceived in terms of Perceived Ease-of-Use and Task success, depending on their level of complexity, the shape of the shifter and stability of the shifter pattern. An experimental study was conducted with participants using six types of gear shifters on three levels of complexity. Results showed that the Monostable joystick received the lowest Perceived Ease-of-Use scores. Furthermore, the Rotary Toggle shifter with monostable function, had lowest Task success, which was supposed to be a result of e.g. unfamiliar design.

Shift-by-wire technology enables more options concerning the design, placement and functions of gear shifters compared to traditional gear shifters with manual transmission. These variations can impact usability and driver performance. There is a lack of research regarding the potential advantages and disadvantages of different types of gear shifters. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficiency and subjective ease-of-use of mono- and polystable joystick gear shifter types at different complexity levels and with full or limited visibility. An experimental study with 36 participants was conducted. The results showed that monostable joysticks, especially those with an I/J-shape, were overall less efficient and easy to use than polystable joysticks. The highest complexity level clearly affected the efficiency for the monostable joystick with an I/J-shape (mono I/J) compared with the other gear shifter types. The monostable joystick with an I/J-shape (mono I/J) was also most affected by reduced visibility at the highest level of complexity, indicating that it was more prone to causing users to take their eyes off the road.

Incidents with monostable gear shifters in passenger cars have been reported to the National Traffic Safety Administration. Studies have also shown usability issues with monostable gear shifters in cars. However, these studies have focused on younger adults. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether usability testing would show a difference in a comparison of older adults and younger adults in a study of the possible effects of age on gear shifter usability. Two age groups were compared, with 12 adults between 19-31 and 12 older adults between 51-66. Task completion times, task success and perceived ease-of-use were measured with six different gear shifter concepts, with a joystick or rotary gear shifter, and with variations in movement patterns in different levels of visibility. Results showed that the older age group had longer task completion times and made more errors than the younger group. However, the older group gave all of the gear shifters higher ease-of-use scores than the younger group. Overall, the monostable gear shifters received lower usability measures in comparison to the polystable gear shifters. There seemed to be a learning effect with the polystable gear shifters, especially for the older age group. This indicating that the polystable gear shifters were easier to learn than the monostable gear shifters, and that they were not as dependent on visual feedback.

Within industrial environments, a number of different decisions need to be made on a daily basis regarding product development. These decisions will have an impact on, for example, safety, efficiency and customer satisfaction in different ways. It is of interest to investigate how decision makers within the Swedish vehicle industry experience the line of action for making decisions and how they experience possible concerns and improvements in decision-making. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with different experts within the vehicle industry. The results showed that everyday decision-making is a balancing act between normative and descriptive decisions, often depending on available knowledge and guidelines and whether there is time and money available to acquire new and complementary knowledge. If the resources needed to acquire knowledge are lacking, one of the most important resources is networking, both internally and externally. Well- functioning communication between teams and key actors in the development process is also reported to be crucial for efficient decision-making. Also, a more agile work approach could impact decision-making due to different resource requirements for hardware and software.