A Usability Evaluation of Navigation and Information System “Pre-Drive” Functions

Recent technological advancements have created the capability for functionally powerful vehicle navigation and information systems to become a reality in the near future. The wide variety of desirable and likely features, and the complexity of some of the required driver manipulations, will necessitate the division of most systems into “pre-drive” and “drive” subsystems. For both the pre-drive and drive cases, usability within the constraints of the automotive environment is extremely important to system success.

This study tested a variety of pre-drive functions to determine if likely users could operate such a system effectively with little or no training. Although the simulated scenarios required no error recovery, the generally low incidence of errors indicates that many of the pre-drive functions could likely be performed by a wide variety of representative drivers with no training.