As in-car displays house more information and controls, there is concern at how to make the screens less distracting while driving. Now a new study has found that even small changes in typeface style can help reduce the visual load of a driver by as much as 10 percent.
The study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, the New England University Transportation Center, and Monotype Imaging Holdings (a provider of typefaces to consumer devices and applications) used eye-tracking measurements from 82 participants ranging in age from 36-75 years to look at two commonly used typeface designs displayed on a GPS-like screen. The two fonts included a humanist style with more distinguishable shapes compared to the square "grotesque" that uses characters with similar shapes and tight spacing.
Two experiments were conducted to assess the impact of the font styles, with the second test modifying the contrast. Overall, the results showed a 10.6 percent reduction in glance time (the equivalent of about 50 feet of highway driving) among men for the humanist font compared against the grotesque typeface. The first study showed no difference in the women's glance time and the second was a 3 percent increase. Further research will need to determine the reason for these gender differences.
Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at MIT, says that the study shows that "little things can make a big difference" in how to combat the issue of distracted driving and that there are low-cost ways to make improvements. The group is now looking at how to present this preliminary information to automakers, as well as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), who proposed guidelines a few months ago on how automakers can reduce distractions from vehicle controls.
Consumer Reports has been a supporter of the NHTSA rules. Our testing has found that many of the in-car systems are quite complex and distracting as noted in our October 2011 report.
The MyFord Touch system is one where we've been especially critical since it appeared in Ford vehicles last year because of the lack of buttons and knobs to perform common functions, user interaction, and how the information is displayed.
This latest research is one area where simple changes can help readability and make the systems less demanding to the driver. We hope that further research can be conducted to find even more strategies to help reduce distracted driving on our roads.
For more, see our guide to distracted driving.
