Unconstrained design: improving multitasking with in-vehicle information systems through enhanced situation awareness

ABSTRACT

In the age of information, in-vehicle multitasking is inevitable. The popularity of the automobile, in combination with the present information age, create a growing demand to do more in-vehicle than simply focus on the road. Unconstrained Design, a philosophy which supports rather than constrains multitasking, is proposed as a path toward enhancing performance in-vehicle. Situation Awareness (SA), a theory allowing designers to understand how operators interact in dynamic, complex environments, is used to frame this experimental investigation. Two SA-grounded human-machine interface concepts are proposed, designed to support drivers to multitask in-vehicle when frequent task switching is required. The first focuses upon supporting preparation for a Non-Driving Related Activity (NDRA), and the second upon supporting the Driving Related Activity (DRA) when an NDRA is active. While multitasking, Contextual Cueing, using a Head-up Display, produced significant reductions in NDRA response time, while an auditory lane keeping aid increased the amount of time a driver spent in the central region of a lane. The combined evidence suggests that using SA and Unconstrained Design to create of IVIS that support drivers’ ability to multitask in-vehicle can lead to task performance improvements.

KEYWORDS:

• Automotive
• human machine interface
• situation awareness
• multitasking
• driver behaviour

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. By virtual we mean that the environment is created by a computing system which is not visible to the driver other than through the in-vehicle interface.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by Jaguar Land Rover Research Department in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics (CAPE) and the Engineering Design Centre at Cambridge University.