From the January 2008 issue of Wired

FOUND: Artifacts of the Future

Or, as I would subtitle it: “A Human Factors Nightmare.”

All kidding and craziness aside, heads-up displays are coming into cars very quickly. Right now, they only display speed. The goal is to put information right in the driver’s field of view to minimize eye movements away from the road, similar to the Honda Civic dashboard. This makes sense from a cognitive perspective, except for one major flaw: people can only pay attention to one depth at a time. Therefore, attention must shifted from the road (relatively far away) to the windshield (much closer) in order to glean necessary information. That still leads to performance problems. What some systems are trying to do is to project the information “into the world” so that the speedometer is still on the windshield but appears on the road, so you don’t have to shift attention in depth. Smart.

Of course, while it’s easy to argue that the dashboard is way too cluttered to make driving safe, complex GPS systems are already part of high-end cars. They can be complicated to use and certainly provide a distraction if they make a mistake. Presumably, you’re driving in unfamiliar territory, and your map breaks, forcing you to fiddle with it?

There is a point of balance, where more information helps the driver drive better or multitask. But this makes human factors research all the more critical to ensure safety at all costs while not making driving an unbearable task.