Examining the Relationship Between Age and Instrument Cluster Design Preference

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that elderly drivers, those aged 65 years and older, find current in-vehicle technology, specifically instrument cluster panel difficult to use. Existing research has determined the source of this discomfort stems from a misalignment between contemporary designs and the designs most usable for elderly drivers. Researchers believe that cognitive ability, which is negatively correlated with age, reduces the driver’s ability to retrieve information from complex instrument cluster designs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how young (20 to 30 years old) and elderly drivers (65 years old and above) interacted with novel instrument cluster designs, based on how the designs facilitated information retrieval during driving. 50 participants (gender balanced) completed a series of simulated driving tasks to retrieve information from the instrument cluster while driving on two road conditions (city and highway) during a simulated driving. Analysis of variance was used to determine whether designed instrument cluster panels facilitated reading performance, which was measured in the amount of seconds it took participants to retrieve information from the instrument cluster. Additionally, analysis of variance was used to evaluate whether age significantly affected user satisfaction. Our results indicated that designed instrument clusters did not facilitate meter reading for elderly drivers, nor did they elicit higher user satisfaction scores. Age significantly impacted response time. Further analysis also revealed that response time improved in later stages of the experiment, possibly related to the participant learning how to use the driving simulator over the course of the experiment. Future studies could use a longitudinal experiment to minimize the potential learning effect found in this experiment. This study indicated that there should not be novel instrument cluster designs for elderly drivers.