It is becoming commonplace to buy a car equipped with the latest in-car safety technology, from collision warnings, to back-up cameras, but when it comes to car safety, it is often the small details that are the most significant.
In a recent Automotive World Megatrends webinar, entitled “The impact of typeface design on glance time for in-vehicle displays,” Steve Matteson, Creative Type Director at font specialist company Monotype, provided insight into how font choice impacts glance time in automotive interface design.
Typeface may go unnoticed in everyday life, and Matteson explained that a significant amount of work goes into something that isn’t necessarily appreciated by end users. However, it is becoming the case that people are much more aware of typeface because “they now have to interact with it on devices they use every day.”
Matteson has been designing User Interface (UI) typefaces for 25 years and designed the Windows typeface for the first android launch. He works with UI to optimise how the typeface reads so not to slow down user experience, which is critical in an aeroplane or automotive environment.
Aviation industry influences
Matteson drew specific attention to the aviation industry, and his past work to optimise legibility for charts used by pilots to figure how they should land a plane in an airport. He said, “On the landing charts for pilots, you find that the information is quite dense on the page, with a dull background and grey ink, which means the contrast is also dull.”
Matteson argued that this undoubtedly provides a challenging reading environment for pilots, who may struggle to read the information if an emergency situation arises. These landing charts have begun to be converted to electronic displays to provide more advanced and legible instructions for pilots. Similarly, when driving a car, information provided on the dashboard must be made as easy as possible to read, taking into account an often challenging driving environment.
Matteson believes type is to legibility as architecture is to shelter, and said, “It is possible to significantly improve legibility with certain treatments to design.”
Many fonts are intended to be used for inches, not tiny points, explained Matteson, so when such fonts are used in an automotive environment, visual crowding may easily occur, leading to a distracted driver. The cockpit is also often moving, providing another difficult reading situation.
Whitespace for clarity
Matteson explained that although it may not seem an obvious factor, whitespace is in fact imperative for legibility, and large spacing between letters can also contribute towards increased legibility of fonts.
He said, “Whitespace is a crucial element to all languages. Chinese is a complex language in written form and when the symbols start to collapse on each other, it hinders the legibility, so it is important to have that whitespace around them.”
The font itself has a large task to fulfil, and varying letter proportions often make legibility easier, allowing for specific letters to look different to others without the driver getting confused.
Specifically, Matteson discussed scientific results of legibility studies in aviation and how they impact driver distraction in automotive UI design, and suggested that a 13% performance increase had been seen through the use of his fonts, with a 2% difference being all that was needed to justify a change in their aeroplane chart design.
Eyes on the road
Matteson also discussed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Eyes on the Road campaign in 2011, which took a similar approach to the automotive segment. From his interest in the campaign, Matteson noted that when driving, there are two seconds where almost nothing happens when a drivers’ eyes are away from the road but after that, Matteson explained, “there is this hockey stick spike in traffic incidents.”
From this, Matteson also noted that a big issue behind the wheel is when people are looking at information, typing phone numbers and texting, and that using a cell phone while driving accounted for 17% of all traffic incidents in 2010. Matteson has been looking specifically at how to display the information differently, and what can be done in the typefaces themselves to increase the ability to get people’s eyes back on the road.
Another aspect of the car noted by Matteson is the centre cluster of the dashboard, or the Human Machine Interface (HMI), which is often controlled by buttons or a wheel. Matteson said, “There are issues surrounding how long your eyes are going to be off the road to disseminate this information.”
Describing in-car UI design as a challenge, Matteson said, “There is often a lot of information displayed for the driver in a car and it is often the case that too much information is being exposed all at once.”
Matteson also referenced NHTSA’s TEOTR (total eyes off the road time). He explained that typefaces that are easier to read would help improve automotive experience and decrease the time that a drivers’ eyes are off the road while viewing the HMI. He said, “An average American reads four words per second, so that allows eight words to be read in the critical two-second window. Therefore, it is important to provide the driver with more information in that two second window that is more easily understood. Then they can get their eyes back on the road quickly.”
With higher screen resolution becoming more widely available in cars, Matteson believes it is possible for more typographic expression now than ever. He said, “Companies are becoming increasingly more brand aware and OEMs such as Audi have a custom typeface which covers all of the type in the car and on the website, as well as other places.”
A particular typeface mentioned by Matteson is Eurostile, which he described as a favourite with automotive designers and a typeface often used in cars including the Jaguar XJS. However, many OEMs are going down the road of styling their typeface to fit their brand. Despite this trend, a more defined and legible typeface is critical. Matteson said, “It is time for automotive manufacturers to look further down the road and start thinking about matching their brand with their typeface as well as providing a better experience with increased legibility.”
It’s all in the typeface
Monotype recently partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) AgeLab to perform a study in a driving simulator. Matteson said, “The study enabled us to read the stresses on the heart rate amongst other things, and it is a very advanced way of collecting data.”
The simulator importantly used a simple UI to allow drivers to focus on the typefaces themselves, rather than become distracted by other things.
Matteson said, “The results were compelling. We used two different fonts including Frutiger and Eurostile, which are both designed for good legibility. With Frutiger, we saw a 9.5% decrease in the number of screen glances, and a 3.5% decrease in driver errors.”
He continued, “This becomes important when you put it into context of how far you would travel with a glance away from the screen. A lot of things can happen in 25ft when you’re going 60mph.”
Matteson also described how the latest in-car HMI can act as a hindrance to the driver in distraction terms: “If the numbers on a speedometer are constantly changing, it becomes more of a distraction for the eye as our eyes are automatically drawn to things that are moving. However, if there is a dial with a hand, we learn to recognise where the speed limit is and know its position, which makes it far easier to glance at without being distracted.”
Although Matteson said there is no one magic typeface, he also said, “It is imperative that we focus on legibility and don’t rely on people just memorising where things are in the cockpit.”
Rachel Boagey
