Assessing the impact of typeface design in a text-rich automotive user interface
Name
Reimer-2014-Assessing the impact.pdf
Size
413.86 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
d6ee3199827980b5edc7dac2b4948ae2
Author(s)
Reimer, Bryan
Dobres, Jonathan
Matteson, Steve
Gould, David
Chahine, Nadine
Levantovsky, Vladimir
Mehler, Bruce L.
Coughlin, Joseph F
Date Issued
July 2014
Journal
Ergonomics
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Citation
Reimer, Bryan, Bruce Mehler, Jonathan Dobres, Joseph F. Coughlin, Steve Matteson, David Gould, Nadine Chahine, and Vladimir Levantovsky. “Assessing the Impact of Typeface Design in a Text-Rich Automotive User Interface.” Ergonomics 57, no. 11 (July 30, 2014): 1643–1658.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Text-rich driver–vehicle interfaces are increasingly common in new vehicles, yet the effects of different typeface characteristics on task performance in this brief off-road based glance context remains sparsely examined. Subjects completed menu selection tasks while in a driving simulator. Menu text was set either in a ‘humanist’ or ‘square grotesque’ typeface. Among men, use of the humanist typeface resulted in a 10.6% reduction in total glance time as compared to the square grotesque typeface. Total response time and number of glances showed similar reductions. The impact of typeface was either more modest or not apparent for women. Error rates for both males and females were 3.1% lower for the humanist typeface. This research suggests that optimised typefaces may mitigate some interface demands. Future work will need to assess whether other typeface characteristics can be optimised to further reduce demand, improve legibility, increase usability and help meet new governmental distraction guidelines.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Transportation & Logistics
AgeLab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2014.940000
