A Survey of Challenges Related to the Design of 3D User Interfaces for Car Drivers

After successfully integrating desktop-based concepts into drivers’ cockpits, it is now time to investigate options towards integrating 3D user interaction techniques. Such interaction techniques are becoming increasingly important to handle the ever-growing wealth of information that cars can provide to their drivers regarding traffic, road and car conditions, as well as entertainment and communication facilities. However, since drivers have to focus primarily on the road, they cannot lend their full attention to the user interface. Thus, common requirements and rules for interface design need to be extended. In this paper, we present and discuss the implication of such constraints on 3D user interfaces, listing some upcoming options for integrating 3D interfaces into cars. In addition, we present the concept that cars are no longer mainly mechanical objects. Rather they are complex computer systems with very particular input and output devices and mobile functionality. Following this new view, we reconsider familiar control devices of cars, such as the steering wheel and the gas and brake pedals as input and output devices to a very special three-dimensional computer application with strong connections to the real environment. In this light, such interaction devices serve as valuable examples of well-designed 3D user interfaces for computer-based navigation.