Driver distraction: Lessons from the world of Formula 1

Formula 1 - as the pinnacle of Motorsport - showcases driving in arguably its most intensive form. You don't get a driving experience that is faster, more precise, more demanding. A lap in an F1 car makes the stressful school run look like a 50p ride in a Postman Pat van outside the local post office.

Just as F1 is the driving force behind many developments that end up in mainstream cars, I believe this concentrated form of driving can teach us a lot about driver distraction.  In particular, Controls and Feedback.

Given that nearly every new car launched these days comes fitted with a large touchscreen housing everything from car setup controls to climate control to audio to satellite navigation...why don't we see touchscreens in F1 cars?

It sounds like an absurd question, but it reveals a lot.

The answer is simple. Any distraction to an F1 driver will hinder performance. And the most direct means to alter a setting on a car that is doing 200mph, is through a button, switch or dial that offers precision, clarity and feedback (and therefore minimal distraction) when operated.






Any engineer that asks an F1 driver to navigate menus or tap or slide a finger across a smooth surface to effect a precise change to their vehicle at speed, would be laughed at and fired.

Shift the scenario from the racetrack to public roads and whilst speeds are lowered significantly, pedestrians and other road users are added into the mix.  Why should touch screens be any more suitable to this more conventional scenario?

In Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix, Jenson button told his race engineer over the radio, ""Dave will you stop talking to me in braking zones. Stop talking to me in braking zones."  He was quite upset. Why? Because speech interaction is distracting. The levels of concentration required to feed an F1 car around a race track expose the impact distractions can have on driving performance.

And if Jenson gets distracted, you can bet almost every driver on our roads gets distracted too. Especially if there's a glossy, internet-connected iPad blinking away and tempting you from the centre console.

So do I see a place for touch screens and voice controls in cars? Yes I do. But not in the way they are currently being developed. Motorsport pushes the boundaries of automotive development. We would do well to learn some lessons from that world about what helps and what hinders a driver's performance.

What's causing the Tesla fires?

With Tesla owners having reported 3 fires in 2 months, all the talk has been about the hazardous nature of driving around on a ton of electricity. However, I'm starting to think there might be more to these stories.

Tesla has been quick to point out that all 3 fires were a result of an accident. That's fair. Accidents happen and it's important to separate accidents from scaremongering talk of spontaneous combustion.

All three accidents involved the cars being driven over a hard object at speed, which in turn pierced the battery casing and started a fire. I'm curious to understand why Tesla owners are driving into things. Is it purely bad luck, or is it something more?

I have a theory.  It's completely speculative, but it is possible, nonetheless.  I wonder if these accidents may not have been entirely down to bad luck.  I wonder if they could have been worsened - perhaps even caused - by driver distraction. 

Could driver distraction be playing a role?

Never before has a driver been able to do so much behind the wheel of a car - over and above the primary task of driving! Never before have so many familiar, tactile controls been replaced with a cold smooth interface. Operating a Tesla Model S is unlike operating any other car.  And as brilliant as the technology is, it could be a lot more user-friendly.

Many of the car's functions - both simple and advanced - now require a visual check and a particular dexterity that was not needed in the chunky world of dials and buttons. In short, the interior of the Tesla Model S - as phenomenal as it may be - is potentially unsafe.

Lastly, we shouldn't underestimate the temptation presented by all that considerable computing power poised an arm's reach away. I'm tempted to use my iPhone all the time: when stopped at traffic, whilst waiting for a meeting, even during a meeting. It's not surprising that similar technology - super-sized and transplanted into a car - will sit there begging to be used, providing significant temptation, and inevitably distraction.

So are we perhaps missing something crucial with these fires? Rather than jumping to conclusions about the technology that propels these pioneering vehicles, perhaps we need to consider another possibility:

That indirectly, Teslas are catching fire because of a dangerous user experience.

Putting the touch into touchscreens (Part 2)

As discussed in  Part 1 (Putting the touch into touchscreens), touchscreens need to offer more feedback than a smooth, glassy touch in order t obe a safe addition to the in-car experience.  And a few clever people have developed solutions that start to do just that:

A rotary dial embedded in a touchscreen

A solution touted by QNX, is to plonk a multi-function rotary dial into the middle of a screen.  As the user navigates through the interfaces, the dial performs different functions and the content around the dial changes.  So, frequently used functions like changing volume or temperature can be achieved without having to take eyes off the road - in a manner that mimics more conventional centre consoles.

And as the surrounding touch screen can be operated independently for more compelx tasks such as changing destination, the user gets the best of both worlds.  Embedding the dial in the screen bridges the gap between interface and display, unlike iDrive-type solutions which positions the two physically apart, placing a more significant cognitive load on the user.

A touchscreen with dynamic switchgear and floating dial

This is a very clever solution by a very clever industrial and interaction designer Miha Feuš.  Using magic (probably) he takes the QNX example above a step further by enabling the rotary dial to move to a meaningful place on the touchscreen in response to an action.  Furthermore, the function of the dial adjusts to be relevant to its new context.  (View a full demo)

The interface is further enhanced with switchgear at the base of the screen.  These switches can behave in a number of ways, once again based on the interface selected.  It feels a little too overelaborate for practical use, but it functions as a fantastic proof of concept.

Have you seen any other examples of touchscreens being enhanced by haptic feedback?

Putting the touch into touchscreens (Part 1)

It is the big trend in in-car interfaces: replacing buttons and dials with functions in a touch screen.  But can the smooth, clean surface of a touchscreenoffer anything like the reassuring feedback of a button or a dial?

The Volvo Coupe Concept interior

Tesla started it all with the massive 17" screen in the Model S and it seems every manufacturer wants to follow in their footsteps. 
Volvo recently displayed their Coupe Concept with a beautiful interior dominated by a large central interactive display.  Even the new Peugeot 308 does away with many of the buttons you'd expect to find in a centre console, replacing them with functions housed within a touchscreen.

Whilst the interiors are looking minimalist and sleek as a result, hiding functions behind a screen means drivers now need to look and think about functions that were largely instinctive when there was a button or a dial to fumble for and tweak.  And if drivers are looking at and thinking about a screen, they're not looking at and thinking about the road in front of them.

So how do we make touchscreens safe to use whilst driving?  The answer lies in their name - the sense of touch - or haptic feedback to be more scientific.  Essentially, the answer is to segment functions within the car: functions that are accessed frequently and infrequently.

The interior of the Peugeot 308

Frequently actioned functions that should not require cognitive effort (like changing track or turnign up the heater) should be supported with an input device that offers tactile feedback.

The most obvious example of this is in a task like changing gear in a manual car.  Gear changes happen frequently in a journey, so the cognitive load around changing a gear should be kept as light as possible.  The thought of replacing a gear lever or flappy paddles with a touch screen that the driver needs to tap every time they wish to change up or down is absurd.

Infrequently actioned functions can generally afford a slightly higher cognitive load.  Opening and closing a roof, or even a window for that matter happens seldom on any journey and often when the vehicle is stationary, so using a touch screen to initiate these functions sound almost surprisingly sensible.

Of course this split isn't that simple - just becasue a function isn't needed frequently, doesn't mean it shouldn't be immediately and instinctively accessible.  A hooter is a good example of this, and there are many more similar functions to consider when identifying the most appropriate interface to action them.

So can we make a flat, glossy touchscreen work for functions that just need haptic feedback?  Continued in Part 2...

What £170,000 gets you

This morning I was treated to a ride in a McLaren MP4-12C.  It's a phenomenal car, and so it should be with a basic price tag of over £170,000.

I've enjoyed quick and luxurious cars before, but never something quite in this league.  So before the ride I wondered: Could this car really be 10 times better than my trusty VW Golf Plus?  Or, for that matter, 3 times better than the frighteningly quick Mercedes C65 AMG I experienced a few weeks ago?

In terms of performance, the answer has to be "yes".  Pulling away from the traffic lights gave me at least 10 times more goosebumps than I usually get in my diesel family hatchback.  The engineering effort that has gone into producing such an exciting machine is astonishing - every mechanical element of the car has been carefully considered and then refined some more.  Everything has a purpose.  Everything works beautifully.

Everything except the interfaces inside.

Generally, they are clumsy to use - unpredictable and inaccurate - everything the car itself isn't.  Controls are ultra-lightweight (titanium in some instances) which makes the car a few grams lighter but makes the interfaces a driver frequently touches feel flimsy and sharp.  Displays look futuristic, but feel dated.  Subtle transitions and system feedback are lacking and navigation reflects the system rather than a user's needs.

To be fair, the majority of standard interfaces available are not brilliant, so one can understand why McLaren chose to create their own from scratch.  But in amongst the colossal effort that went into creating one of the best cars on the road today, the user experience went largely unconsidered.  And for £170,000, I'd expect the sat nav to work at least as well as the TomTom stuck to the windscreen of my VW.

BMW, it shouldn't take a Genius...

BMW UK have announced that following a successful pilot, dealerships around the country will soon be populated with a Genius.  One of their main roles will be to explain to customers how to use the technology in their cars.

At first glance, this seems like a copy of Apple's approach.  The key difference being that Apple's products are extraordinarily usable out of the box.  The Apple Genius exists to support users when their Apple product breaks.  The BMW Genius exists - it seems - to show users how to operate their product in the first place.

Whilst BMW  pioneered in car infotainment with iDrive, their offerings have always suffered from poor usability.  To be fair, they are not alone - the majority of today's in-car interfaces are neither user-centric or context-centric.  At best, they are a bit clunky.  At worst, they are are unsafe.

Enter the BMW Genius.  No doubt a big part of their role will be to dazzle potential customers with demonstrations of in-car technology in action.  But it seems they will also be charged with smoothing over the usability cracks of BMW's in-car experience.

130 Geniuses by the end of 2013 will go a long way.  Assuming these are paid just £25,000 a year, that's an annual investment of £3.25million in people alone.  For less than a fifth of that investment, BMW could establish an extensive, global user experience unit tasked with researching and redesigning in-car interfaces.  And when technology is designed around a user, who needs a genius to help them figure it out?