Paper Reading #5: A Multi-Touch Enabled Steering Wheel - Exploring the Design Space

Commentary

See what I have to say about Brian's and Pape's work.

References

Pfeiffer, M., et al. (2010). A multi-touch enable steering wheel - exploring the design space. Proceeding of the Acm conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 3355-3360). Atlanta: http://www.sigchi.org/chi2010/.

Article Summary

Pfeiffer and his associates sought the extend the concept of steering wheel controls and generalize them with a multi-touch interface. They were motivated by the complex "infotainment" systems in most modern cars and their often distracting interfaces, and by the desire to extend previous work in this area. They created a working model of an input device that would take intuitive commands from the driver while allowing the driver to focus on the road and his driving.

The model steering wheel; input areas are indicated in white.

The driver was placed in a simulator that allowed him to experience the interface while actually keeping a car on the road and avoiding obstacles. He was asked to complete tasks such as "start playing music" or "open the navigation system" via thumb gestures, using either one or both thumbs. He did not have to search for the proper button on the steering wheel: he was simply asked to create a gesture that he felt would complete the task at hand. The researchers found that many of the same mental models already in place for other touch interfaces were utilized by the drivers to complete tasks, e.g. drawing a triangle to play music or using the pinch and pull techniques to zoom in and out of a map. They hope to extend the work to allow users to create customizable gesture sets and interfaces and be able to load them into other steering wheels in other cars.

Discussion

Alright, this is pretty cool. I am such a believer in the superiority of intuitive, touch-based interfaces over the standard push-button style stuff that we do these days. I personally believe that it just makes more sense, to interact with an interface in a physical manner like we would expect to interact with real objects in the real world. I do believe that some standard push-button type interfaces do have their place in the world, but I would just like to see more gesturing and tactile interaction going on.

For example, I think that part of the iPhone's initial success in the market was due to their interface. You don't have to scroll around the screen with a ball or wheel or button - just touch want you want to happen and it happens. Sure, touch screens and tablets and portable devices had been around forever, but the iPhone was practical and intuitive, head and shoulders above the competition. It will be a very short while before we see these kinds of interfaces popping up all over the place... I just don't know where yet... Sure, we might not replace the "Play" and "Eject" buttons on our Bluray players, and we probably will leave the standard up-down buttons or slide lever on our thermostats, but there has to be something out there that would benefit from a touch screen!