A remarkably small idea that could reduce distracted driving

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: A remarkably small idea that could reduce distracted driving

There are at least two ways to think about the problem of distracted driving. We could try to get people to cut down on all of the stuff that's distracting them -- texting, fielding phone calls, fiddling with in-car navigation screens at 50 miles an hour. Or we could acknowledge that drivers will probably keep doing all of those things anyway and try to mitigate the harm.

Cars, after all, have only grown more technologically sophisticated, more filled with screens and media and material to read. At this point, realistically, there's no going back to the days of basic dashboards and radio dials.

"There's always been some type of labeling in cars," says Carl Crossgrove, a senior designer with the typeface design firm Monotype. "But we're on the cusp of a huge jump in terms of the potential for distraction in driving because so many car-makers are about ready to launch models with touch screens, navigation, infotainment screens."

[corco]

That's a pretty big idea

[hotdogPi]

I think this will increase distracted driving.

[hm insulators]

I think this will increase distracted driving.

I agree.

[jeffandnicole]

What does fielding phone calls have to do with the font on the radio screen?

I've never had a problem figuring out if I've tuned the radio to 98.7 or GB.7.

About the only thing I agreed with was the commenter that doesn't believe she has to worry about her 81 year old grandma listening to the Black Eye Peas.

[getemngo]

The problem with touchscreens is not how legible the text is, or how complicated the menus are. Of course it's a good idea to fix those issues, but distracted driving will continue to get worse as long as touchscreens exist in their current form. Period.

A touchscreen doesn't have any tactile feedback. In my Bonneville, I can change the radio station or the temperature without looking because I can feel the buttons and I know what they do. With a touchscreen, you have to move your eyes away from the road and look at the screen to do anything.

While the automakers are working to add haptic feedback to touchscreens, here are solutions that exist today:

• Rely more and more on voice commands instead of touch commands
• Disable some touchscreen features while the car is in motion (Chrysler does this)
• Have physical buttons to control the climate and radio
• Have physical buttons next to or below the screen to control some things on it, like the buttons next to ATM screens

[Duke87]

A touchscreen doesn't have any tactile feedback.

THIS

This is why I insist on having a phone with a physical qwerty keyboard. Trying to type on a tiny touch screen is a difficult task due to the lack of tactile feedback.

[Pete from Boston]

It's not a mystery that our hands can do just fine without our eyes:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-humans-display-highest-cognitive-abilities-w,35602/

As usual, not that far from the truth.

[triplemultiplex]

Reduce distracted driving by letting computers do the driving.  Get the idiot humans out of the equation.  Then they can text and shave and shovel french fries into their faces as much as they want.

We trust our lives to computers almost constantly already.  It's just going to take the stones to do it instead of coming up with excuses to not. 

[corco]

A touchscreen doesn't have any tactile feedback.

THIS

This is why I insist on having a phone with a physical qwerty keyboard. Trying to type on a tiny touch screen is a difficult task due to the lack of tactile feedback.

I was concerned about this, but I finally got a smartphone- a Moto X, and it actually provides artificial tactile feedback with a short, sharp, slight vibration everytime you touch a digital key. I'm actually pretty impressed by how well it works, and I'm normally skeptical of this sort of thing.

[briantroutman]

The first comment below the article says basically everything I was thinking.

The study of the legibility of typefaces is nothing new -- it has been a primary consideration ever since the art was established. This article falsely suggests otherwise. 

It also promotes a false -- and incredibly dangerous -- rationale: that people are going to behave childishly and drive distracted anyway, so let's try to minimize the carnage

This is a non-article that is little more than a press release repeater for Monotype.