Digital Messages on Vehicle Windshields Make Driving Less Safe
[Philip Lelyveld Comment: while the story title is accurate, another way to think of it is that the study gives guidance to heads-up display UI design.]
When the number of spots increased, the rate climbed to one in 10 instances, suggesting that if attention is increasingly occupied by the primary task, participants will have more difficulty attending to the secondary task stimulus. The accuracy of the number of spots reported also diminished as the number of spots increased, suggesting that as a primary task becomes more demanding both tasks compete with and interfere with each other.
In a real-life situation -- such as driving a vehicle -- even more is demanded of a driver. It is not enough to simply see something unexpected, one must identify what is seen and respond appropriately.
"It would be necessary to distinguish, for example, between warnings of a collision and a recommendation to make a turn," said Spence. "Otherwise competing warnings may be more dangerous than no warning at all."
See the full story here: http://www.pddnet.com/news/2015/06/digital-messages-vehicle-windshields-make-driving-less-safe