Phone Use While Driving

From MobileDesign

Presented at Design for Mobile 2009

[edit] Presenter

Bob Miller (VML)

Paul Atchley (University of Kansas)

David Heinsohn (Flight Safety International)

1040-1130 | Wednesday

[edit] Abstract

We all know that phone use while driving is bad... but how bad is it? And what can we as designers and researchers do to help? Join an attention researcher, a flight instructor, and a human factors design expert to learn more about the human side of that problem and brainstorm solutions.

[edit] Discussion

[edit] Steven Hoober says:April 10, 2009, •Apr10•0932

> We all know that phone use while driving is bad

I disagree. We're /told/ phone use is evil, evil, evil. But is it worse than any of a dozen other distractions? Research seems all over the place, and much is unreleased, sponsored by interest groups and otherwise suspect. I distrust it all partly because the reaction has been legislation that is demonstrably ineffective against a part of the issue that is irrelevant (handsfree legislation).

It seems to me to be a default "blame the object" reaction. And this is doomed to fail. If nothing else, because the value (say, in navigation alone) is high, and perceived to be high. Mobile devices will be used in environments like driving where distraction must be taken into account, and more in the future than today.

Voice and SMS are just the tip of the iceberg; many of the use cases we come up with for mobile search and contextual alerting would be most useful while moving through an area, and throughout the US this is usually while driving.

Since this isn't a conference on marketing and PR, what can we as designers do about this? As I see it, three aspects: - Reduce distraction to users in any key task (ideally: contextual intelligence) - Reduce the perception that mobile devices are inherently distracting and evil - Design interaction methods and services that are specifically designed with users like drivers in mind

[edit] Paul Atchley replies:April 21, 2009, •Apr21•2159

Research is far from "all over the place". In fact, academic researchers, who have no monetary stake either way, consistently find large, and clear evidence that cellular phone use while driving is dangerous (as much as driving drunk), and far worse than other "distractions".

I should know, I am one of those researchers.

[edit] Media & Downloads

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