Usability Evaluation for In-Vehicle Systems

"Preface The work presented in this book was prompted by the need for an evaluation framework that is useful and relevant to the automotive industry. It is often argued that ergonomics is involved too late in the commercial project development processes to have substantive impact on design and usability. In the automotive industry, and specifically in relation to In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS), a lack of attention to the issue of usability can lead not only to poor customer satisfaction but can also present a significant risk to safe and efficient driving. This work contributes to the understanding and evaluation of usability in the context of IVIS and is written for students, researchers, designers, and engineers who are involved or interested inthe design and evaluation of in-vehicle systems. The book has three key objectives - Define and understand usability in the context of IVIS. This guides the specification of criteria against which usability can be successfully evaluated. - Develop a multimethod framework to support designers in the evaluation of IVIS usability. The underlying motivations for the framework are a need for early-stage evaluation to support proactive redesign and a practical and realistic approach that can be used successfully by automotive manufacturers. - Develop an analytic usability evaluation method that enables useful predictions of task interaction, while accounting for the specific context-of- use of IVIS"--