Yesterday, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released revised driver distraction guidelines. This long overdue revision came after the automotive industry raised serious questions and concerns regarding specific guidelines which at times seemed arbitrary and counterproductive.

Thankfully, NHTSA listened and clarified, removed or modified some of the more controversial guidelines, specifically regarding dynamically moving maps, non-driving-related static images, and the number of characters allowed to be presented on a display.

In doing so, NHTSA’s guidelines came closer in line with the statement of principles from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers released back in 2006. The work that the AAM and its member organizations put into developing and adhering to their own set of voluntary guidelines staved off regulation and laid the groundwork for NHTSA’s guidelines, helping the automobile industry to control the conversation and define its own solution to the problem of driver distraction.

NHTSA did, however, go further than the AAM in a few areas which will impact future connected infotainment systems. Most notably perhaps is the recommendation against satellite imagery and street views, impacting future implementations of those features from Google or Bing.

Of course these guidelines are “voluntary” though NHTSA will be checking to see if they are followed. NHTSA will now turn its attention to Phase 2 and 3 addressing carried-in devices and speech recognition, respectively.

In addition to releasing the revised guidelines, NHTSA also released its latest research report on the effects of cell phone use while driving. In line with previous naturalistic research, this report showed that driver distraction is all about visual-manual issues when it comes to crash risk. Manual dialing increased crash risk, while talking on a handheld and doing any call-related task on hands-free implementations do not. 

It will be interesting to see the results of naturalistic studies on the impact of speech recognition on crash risk. Since all data thus far suggests that it is visual-manual distraction which increases crash risk, what guidelines can NHTSA draw up if it is found that speech recognition does not negatively impact safety?

Click here for more on the impact of NHTSA’s revised driver distraction guidelines.

Click here for more on driver distraction research and legislation.

Today saw the launch of the Apple iPhone 5, the first device to feature Apple's new mapping application pre-installed. However, iOS 6 was released for other Apple devices a few days earlier, and when installed, replaced Google Maps with Apple's new mapping application.

iOS 6 maps brings new features to the iPhone, including turn-by-turn navigation. While there have been many positive experience reported on iOS 6 Maps, there have also been a significant volume of criticism in the press and on social media sites of missing towns, poorly rendered imaging, inaccurate routing and out of date information. A blog has even been set up where users can take a screen shot of such issues - The Amazing iOS 6 Maps (The Apple iOS 6 Maps are Amazing. Not.)

Source: http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/post/31927907199/left-apple-map-on-iphone-4s-right-google-map-on

SA research has found that maps and navigation are one of the most used features by smartphone users. 66% of iPhone users in the US and Western Europe report using maps on their phone on a weekly basis. Users also place a high value on a map/navigation application compared to other apps.

So what are the alternatives? There are many map and navigation applications available to download to the iPhone, although not the one they are familiar with - Google Maps - which they can now only access via the iPhone's web browser. However, the well-known and well-trusted navigation apps generally come with a hefty price tag.

Switching to another platform is also an option. Nokia has invested heavily in mapping, and both Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive on the Lumia series of devices provide an excellent experience, including indoor maps. Android also provides a viable alternative through embedded Google Maps which supports the turn-by-turn navigation and street view functions that iPhone users are familiar with.

However, our recent research into consumer attachment to the mobile platform of their choice suggests that dissatisfaction with specific features - even those as important and valued as mapping - is unlikely by itself to drive more than a few iOS devotees to switch to a new platform due to their concerns about losing access to apps and content associated with their current device and the requirement to learn a new, unfamiliar UI.

In the short-term the implementation of turn-by-turn navigation is being overshadowed by mapping glitches and backlash regarding features that are no longer supported. In the long run, Apple will address these issues and the current outcry will be largely forgotten. What the company will gain is control over its own map app, which will allow it to provide deeper location integration and more compelling location services.

- Paul Brown

OEMs are striving more than ever to differentiate their infotainment offerings with HMI. Proximity sensors, gestures, and natural language speech recognition are hot topics which OEMs are using to differentiate the in-vehicle experience. 

This is part of a larger trend that we see extending beyond the automotive environment, as we head toward the “invisible experience” which consists of:

• Less cognitive effort, which will be required for simple interactions, as more advanced HMI become available
• Machine intelligence and context awareness, which will be utilized for more complicated tasks to validate user intentions and help them recover.

In the automotive space, OEMs are pursuing gesture recognition, proximity sensors, and other innovative HMI for differentiation. However, for many of these HMI, the differentiation will have a minimal impact on the actual UX, as they have minimal usefulness.

Meanwhile, for connected services, touchscreens and natural language speech recognition are vital for a compelling user experience. Touchscreens can provide an experience similar to smartphones and lend to easy discoverability of features, while natural language speech recognition provides the ability to carry out complex tasks in a safe manner.

The full report, Automotive HMI Trends: Natural Language and Touchscreens Required for Connectivity, is available for clients of Automotive Consumer Insights and Automotive Multimedia and Communications Service. 

In February, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released recommendations to address driver distraction associated with in-vehicle electronic devices. For the most part, the work conducted by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM) resulting in a set of voluntary guidelines was rewarded, as it framed the NHTSA guidelines and tweaked some of their methodologies. While this is generally good news for OEMs, there are two issues in particular which could result in a big shift in how navigation and infotainment are provided to the consumer.

The first oddity is recommendation V.5.g, in a section describing things which should be locked out while driving. Among the items to be locked out are “Reading more than 30 characters (not counting punctuation marks, counting each number, no matter how many digits it contains, as one character, and counting units such as mph as just one character) of visually presented text.”

The 30-character limit didn’t come out of thin air, but instead came from the existing guidelines from the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) which are considered the strictest of the existing guidelines.

This will affect radio, other music options, and connected services. Connected media players and internet radio display artist, song title, and album title information. Under this 30-character rule, not all of this information can be displayed. Album title would most certainly have to go, and in some cases combinations of song title and artist which exceeds 30 characters would also not be allowed to be displayed in full. Scrolling text is also frowned upon so there would be no way to access this information while in motion. NHTSA might argue that drivers would be compelled to read all text, but in this use case I would argue that is not the case, and that assumption would need to be backed up by research.

The second could drastically impact navigation, and result in actually increasing distraction to the driver, and will set back the navigation UX many years. This is under section V.5.b which states “The display of either static or quasi-static maps (quasi-static maps are static maps that are updated frequently, perhaps as often as every few seconds, but are not continuously moving) for the purpose of providing driving directions is acceptable. Dynamic, continuously moving maps are not recommended.”

This actually makes me wonder if anyone at NHTSA has ever used a navigation system. Dynamic maps are a great assist to the driver, particularly when approaching a turn in an urban area. Forcing maps to only update every few seconds would likely increase the number of glances and glance time toward the nav system as the driver’s eyes will watch for the next update to assess their position. It simply goes against good (and most importantly safe) UX design.

Hopefully during this period of public comment, NHTSA will rethink some of these recommendations which do not enhance safety and simply make technology less usable for the consumer.

Ford announced upgrades to SYNC’s interface, which are meant to make it easier to use and more visually pleasing. These upgrades will be available to all MyFord Touch owners via a USB that will be mailed to them over the coming months. The list of improvements include:

• larger and bolder fonts,
• less clutter,
• better labeling of tabs
• moving from two lines of information on each tab to one
• LED buttons for radio bands
• one-touch access to both driver and passenger climate controls from control screen
• increased use of icons on phone screen.

All of these changes should improve the usability of the visual interface. As noted in our original review of MyFord Touch, users had some difficulty with the tab structure. Removing clutter and labeling each tab can help users locate and use these tabs more effectively.

While this fixes certain user experience issues customers are currently facing, the question remains where does SYNC go from here? As we previously noted, Ford was falling behind in terms of look and feel for the connected car. With smartphone integration, consumers will want an interface more closely resembling their own smartphone, which will allow for easy discoverability of apps that are available while driving. The addition of some icons in this upgrade is a small step in the right direction.

The navigation tab on SYNC can easily be changed to an apps tab, with navigation simply being one of the apps available. The gradual move towards more icons may allow Ford to provide a more icon-centric apps tab without jarring the overall look and feel of SYNC. If Ford is able to do this, then these updates will not only help current users, but provide a more seamless transition in the visual interface once more applications are added.

Yesterday Apple confirmed the rumor that they are integrating an enhanced speech recognition system on the iPhone. The iPhone 4S will be equipped with “Siri”, which is being described as an “intelligent assistant” to help you get things done such as check the local weather forecast or find the nearest Chinese restaurant.

Siri is being touted as a “game-changing” advance in user experience. Jason Schwarz on Seeking Alpha calls it “the most significant upgrade to the Apple ecosystem since the initial launch of the product back in 2007.” But will Siri actually bring about the revolution in speech recognition that the industry has been seeking all these years?

The implications for automotive HMI are clear: if Siri works then this can provide a very natural way for consumers to accomplish tasks such as local search and text messaging while driving. Our own research has shown that too many consumers are trying to do these tasks on their mobile phones while driving, which of course is highly distracting and dangerous due to the visual-manual distraction associated with text input. Being able to accomplish the input portion with one simple voice command can alleviate the distraction.

All of this is done using natural language processing, which has been talked about for years but hasn’t yet fulfilled its potential due to accuracy issues. Can Siri really make it “just work”? If so, we may be at the cusp of a revolution in speech recognition. We’ve found through our research that consumers are very interested in using voice, but for the most part have been extremely disappointed in the available solutions. All they need is one that “just works”, and I predict consumer acceptance and usage would take off.

Siri already has a few things going in its favor. The main issue consumers have with speech recognition systems is that they don’t know what the correct commands are. All too often, their initial commands do not coincide with available grammar, and they quickly become lost. Since Siri does not have fixed grammar or a fixed top level menu, users can vary widely in what they say. While this issue is avoided, Siri still has other obstacles to overcome:

• First and foremost, Siri has to be extremely accurate. Consumers will tolerate some errors, but frustration will quickly set in, and users will abandon the technology after just a few failed attempts.
• When errors do occur, users need to know how to exit. If an utterance is misrecognized, users will tend to repeat their command, no matter where the system took them, which typically only results in more errors.
• Users will have to adapt to natural language. Given the increase in IVR systems more consumers are familiar with speech recognition, but it is of the command-and-control variety. We have seen users hesitant to talk to speech recognition systems naturally and have felt more comfortable with providing concise commands and being walked through menus step-by-step.

Apple has already shown they can revolutionize the user experience in mobile devices. If Siri works, the automotive industry will need to partner with Apple to bring this into the vehicle. Strategy Analytics Automotive Consumer Insights service will publish a report evaluating Siri in the automotive environment after its release.

With the automotive infotainment focus squarely on how to deliver smartphone apps to consumers in the car, Strategy Analytics Automotive Consumer Insights is conducting user benchmarks of these new and innovative systems. Our recent report on the Pioneer AppRadio examined how well iPhone apps were integrated and presented to the user, as well as the overall experience of the head unit.

The report “Pioneer AppRadio Suffers from Inconsistent Interface” suggests that while we can see the potential, the AppRadio falls well short. The AppRadio in inconsistent in how users can interact with lists and list items between music and other functions. In some functions, users can interact with the AppRadio much like the iPhone, using the swipe gesture and directly touching screen items to select them. In other functions, however, users have to use up and down arrow keys to scroll and an “OK” button to select an item instead of directly touching it.

Additionally, we found the following user experience issues with the Pioneer AppRadio:

• Text entry for applications had to be done on the iPhone and not on the display.
• Many applications had no method to exit and move to another application unless the user did so via the phone.
• Icons on the radio were not immediately intuitive to users.
• Setting radio presets was not intuitive, as users could not press and hold a current preset to set it to a new frequency.

We will continue our focus on in-vehicle apps, with an evaluation of the Parrot ASTEROID aftermarket unit coming soon, as well as publishing best practice UX recommendations for the delivery of in-vehicle apps.

Clients of Automotive Consumer Insights can  access the Pioneer AppRadio report here.

I’ve written on more than one occasion in this blog defending MyFord Touch, and it looks like it’s time to do it yet again. JD Power released their Initial Quality Rankings, and the biggest story was Ford plummeting from 5th to 23rd. While issues with the dual clutch transmission contributed, the focus surrounding the fall has been on MyFord Touch and customer issues with usability. When we evaluated the user experience of MyFord Touch with consumers , we found the voice interface to be very compelling. Some users found it overwhelming at first and had difficulty with discoverability of features due to the tab structure  on the touchscreen, but once they used the voice interface, they were sold.

Ford’s plummet shouldn’t be taken as a rejection of MyFord Touch by consumers. Instead, the ranking free-fall likely came for other reasons:

1.  Software flaws which reportedly produced black screens and nightly resets which Ford and Microsoft have been addressing
2. There is not a lot of separation between the automakers in the rankings, so a few additional problem can greatly affect one’s ranking
3. JD Power’s method for calculating the rankings

JD Power includes consumer issues with design and usability in their rankings, and those problems (from what I can tell) are given the same weight as manufacturing defects. The IQS looks at problems per 100 vehicles, and doesn’t differentiate between a stuck accelerator and whether the voice interface works with the driver’s particular accent.

With MyFord Touch taking the lead in bringing technology to the mainstream and promoting voice control, there will undoubtedly be some consumers who run into problems. With technology, even the best-designed systems typically have some minor usability issues. The problem is that Ford’s competition has lagged behind, and so they have fewer things that could be a problem.

With more complex technology comes more issues, so should Ford or other OEMs be dissuaded from pushing the bar in terms of in-vehicle technology to avoid the bad PR? I would hate to see that happen. Nor should it be forgotten that by pushing technology, Ford has shown well in other JD Power rankings, dominating the 2010 U.S. Navigation Usage and Satisfaction Study. 

What also should not be lost in this is the view from JD Power, as mentioned in the Detroit Free Press: “Sometimes a pioneering technology, such as Ford's voice-commanded vehicle control system, may meet resistance that shows up as a quality flaw in short-term quality surveys…But in the long term, it almost certainly will be a very good idea."

With automotive growth in China soaring, both foreign and local OEMs are scrambling to get in on the action. Strategy Analytics Automotive Multimedia and Communications Service predicts that telematics and connectivity ECU’s will grow more than thirteen-fold by 2016.

Especially given the congestion issues in China’s tier one cities, navigation and traffic information is going to be a key connected service. We recently conducted a survey of current Chinese navigation consumers to examine their usage of navigation devices, their usage of navigation features, their satisfaction with those features, and their interest and willingness to pay for features on their next navigation device.

The main findings were:

- Chinese consumers that own embedded navigation systems use them more often on a daily basis than owners of PNDs and owners of navigation applications on mobile devices. 

- While route guidance to a new destination is used more often on a weekly basis, speed camera warnings and real-time traffic are used more often on a daily basis.

- Real-time traffic and speed camera warnings are also the two features in which Chinese consumers must have on their next navigation device.

Given the state of the traffic situation in China, the relevance of real-time traffic is not at all surprising. Of course, while Chinese consumers are very interested, and may even be willing to pay for it, traffic services need to be extremely accurate. It only takes a one missed event for a consumer to lose trust in their traffic system. And as we’ve experienced, a missed event can cost a driver several hours.

The full report is available to ACI clients here.

At the upcoming SAE World Congress, ATX will present results from a study they conducted with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) showing that their own voice-based texting system reduces driver distraction when compared to manually texting. That should come as a shock to absolutely no one. However, VTTI has previously shown that manually texting while driving increased crash risk by 23 times over baseline driving. So based on these two studies, what can we conclude? Logically only that the crash risk of using a voice-based texting system is somewhere lower than 23 times that of normal driving.

That's simply not good enough.

There is ample research to suggest that voice interfaces reduce distraction compared to the comparable manual interface, and some studies, including some of my own primary research, show that for some measures driving performance using voice interfaces is indistinguishable from normal driving. But we still do not know the true effect on crash risk of using a voice interface, or how errors in voice recognition affect crash risk.

Naturalistic research, such as that carried out previously by VTTI (although I must note the ATX study carried out by VTTI was not a naturalistic study, but was instead conducted on their Smart Road), is the only available methodology for determining crash risk, which as I keep pointing out is the gold standard metric that all these researchers should be trying to determine. It's questionable whether voice interfaces have achieved the levels of usage among consumers that will allow us to determine that crash risk in the next naturalistic study.

So what can be done?

Well, first would be to design better studies. The ATX study is lacking in that it doesn't compare voice interfaces to baseline driving, or to any other task for which it has been determined that crash risk is raised but by less than 23 times. That can at least provide some rough guidance as to where the risk lies.

OnStar has been the only company to date that has had the courage to put its own internal data to the test. Of course for full disclosure I worked on that project and co-authored that study, but it was surprising how willing they were to take a big risk. Other companies, if they truly believe in and stand behind their product, should follow suit and support more rigorous research that will contribute to the discussion on driver distraction.

Chris Schreiner

Links:

ATX press release on study

OnStar study on crash risk

ACI research on driver distraction