Auto(mobile): Mobile Visual Interfaces for the Road

Figure 1: Comparison of route maps for varying speeds. As the speed increases (left to right), the amount of detail displayed to the user is reduced. The increased prevalence of mobile touch screen interfaces in cars provides for new challenges in terms of optimizing safety, usability and affective response. While touch screens have certain usability benefits, the interfaces present significant visual attention demands from the driver. Suppose that you are traveling to an unfamiliar des-tination in your city to visit a friend. You know that she lives close to a popular landmark (mall, tourist attraction) and have visited that landmark several times. If you get directions from your GPS to visit your friend, it will most likely provide a shortest or fastest route, none of which will take into account the fact that you have visited the popular landmark several times. Additionally, the amount of navigational details that you would need to get to the popular land-mark would be far fewer than the assistance you would need when you are driving in an unfamiliar region. By using context from the phone and car, more informed visual navigation applications can be created for a better user experience.