TM Design of the Truck Productivity Computer ™ from the Driver's Perspective

Communication is vital to the successful delivery of freight. A product that uses the latest communications technology, and makes that technology easily accessible to a driver would be a great benefit to the trucking industry. This paper focuses on the iterative design process of such a product called the Truck Productivity Computer™ (TruckPC). The TruckPC is a combination of an audio system, which includes radio, CD and weather, and an open platform communications and computing system. This paper discusses the driver-centered design process that was used in the development of both software and hardware interfaces. Topics discussed include the human factors guidelines that provided a basis for early design values and testing that concerned the design of the user input modes (buttons, knobs, speech recognition) and output modes (display, division of information on the display, text-to-speech synthesis). Specific examples illustrate how software applications are programmed to create a consistent user interface. Driver preferences are also discussed.