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It has been established that head-down displays (HDDs), such as those commonly placed in the dashboard of commercial automobiles, can draw drivers’ attention away from the primary driving task (Bach et al., 2008). This problem can be exacerbated when screens are “busy” with graphics or rich information. In this paper, we present the results of a driving simulator-based user study where we examined two potential alternatives to HDDs for presenting textual lists. Subjects conducted a series of street name finding tasks using each of three system variants: one with a HDD, one with a head-up display (HUD), and one with only an auditory display. We found that the auditory display had the least impact on mental load, but at the expense of task completion efficiency. The HUD variant also had a low impact on mental load and scored highest in user satisfaction, and therefore appears to be the most viable target for future study.

This study was designed to investigate effects of different display configuration designs. Nineteen drivers completed a driving simulator study designed to resemble normal driving. Driving performance, glance behaviour, physiological measures, and task completion times was measured for two display configuration designs both during driving only and during driving with a simple secondary task, which consisted of detection, and off-setting of presented warnings. The display configuration design with more centrally placed information, e.g. the HUD and HDD, had less detrimental effects on driving performance and glance behaviour. The physiological measures showed, however, no significant differences between display configuration designs.