title: Older drivers' attitudes about instrument cluster designs in vehicles.
abstract: Little is known about older drivers' preferences and attitudes about instrumentation design in vehicles. Yet visual processing impairments are common among older adults and could impact their ability to interface with a vehicle's dashboard. The purpose of this study is to obtain information from them about this topic, using focus groups and content analysis methodology. A trained facilitator led 8 focus groups of older adults. Discussion was stimulated by an outline relevant to dashboard interfaces, audiotaped, and transcribed. Using multi-step content analysis, a trained coder placed comments into thematic categories and coded comments as positive, negative, or neutral in meaning. Comments were coded into these categories: gauges, knobs/switches, interior lighting, color, lettering, symbols, location, entertainment, GPS, cost, uniformity, and getting information. Comments on gauges and knobs/switches represented half the comments. Women made more comments about getting information; men made more comments about uniformity. Positive and negative comments were made in each category; individual differences in preferences were broad. The results of this study will be used to guide the design of a population-based survey of older drivers about instrument cluster format, which will also examine how their responses are related to their visual processing capabilities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 700 S. 18th Street, Suite 609, Birmingham, AL 35294-0009, USA. Electronic address: owsley@uab.edu.
authors.forename: Cynthia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Owsley
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 700 S. 18th Street, Suite 609, Birmingham, AL 35294-0009, USA; Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 700 S. 18th Street, Suite 609, Birmingham, AL 35294-0009, USA.
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McGwin
authors.affiliation: Vehicle Development Research Laboratory, General Motors R&D Center, 30500 Mound Road, Warren, MI 48090-9055, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Seder
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D001290:Attitude; D001336:Automobiles; D003626:Data Display; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology