Will the mobile Internet be crushed by human factors concerns?

One of the interesting happenings at Internet World 2001 in
March was the fascinating discussion about the Internet in
your car. The trade show was on the same week as a major stock
market decline and the focus on the future was more pleasant
than the vision of dot-com dreams going down the sewer. A lot
of people were salivating at the (profitable) prospects of
creating access to the Internet for both old and new cars.
There is a scary aspect to these prospects. One has to realize
that the reason people are so interested in having you access
the Internet in your car is to capture your interest and your
attention and focus it on their offerings. They seem to forget
that drivers have another competing concern--driving. The
threat of interest and attention dispersal from road hazards
while driving raises issues that require human factors
analysis.

What are the issues??
The issues raised by human factors analysis in the context of
Internet use while driving an automobile require that we study
driver anthropometry-- the objective measure of human response
and interactions while driving. This requires that we study
control panels, data displays, the positions of people in
drivers' seats, driver visual fields, and the reach of
drivers--both with arms and with fingers. Taken together, all
of these data inputs and outputs constitute the workload on
the driver.

Human factors issues include such considerations as human
perceptions, reaction times, and cognitive function. Of
special interest is human performance in accident causation
and collision avoidance, visibility of objects, lighting
available at the time of collisions, conspicuity and the
effects of glare, product labels, warnings, signage, and the
presence of hazards.

NTIS
The best place to start is the US Government's index to its
own research on product design and engineering issues-the
National Technical Information Service http://www.ntis.gov/.
Resist the impulse to leap into search mode immediately. It is
critical that we examine the key word lists and fit our search
into the search terms the database uses for indexing material.
The benefits of this analysis are that we get higher levels of
more relevant retrieval and we get opportunities for leads
that we would not ordinarily get.

Ergoworld
An online resource helpful in defining these ergonomic issues
is called Ergoworld
http://www.interface-analysis.com/ergo%20world/hf.htm/.
Ergoworld is a product of a private consultancy--Interface
Analysis Associates. What is particularly helpful about
Ergoworld is that the links are explained so that you are not
overburdened with so much information that you cannot handle
it. One section deals with human factors information in
general. It is a quick overview and provides hypertext links
to other sites--but not so many that you are overburdened.
Another helpful section deals with the relationship between
vehicles, psychology, and engineering. This is particularly
helpful in the lawyer's quest to get a handle the
psychological aspects of the case. That helps build both the
liability and damages aspects of your case.
NASA
Another helpful resource is the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration Human Factors Research and Technology web site
at http://www.olias/arc/nasa.gov/%20reports/. What is
particularly helpful here is the focus on how humans process
information coming to them through a number of senses
simultaneously. This is of interest to NASA because NASA is
trying to design effective tools for controlling spacecraft.
These same issues arise when designers try to make effective
controls for automobiles.

ErgoWeb
ErgoWeb http://www.ergoweb.com/ is another example of a useful
resource created by a private consultancy. The focus is
ergonomics. The resource hyperlinks include statutes and
regulations, case studies, and reference materials. There are
discussions of software that one can use in the office for
training and for industrial analysis. There are also news
clips and hypertext links to government documents and comments
on government actions.