Towards the Design of Context-Aware Adaptive User Interfaces to Minimize Drivers’ Distractions

The usage of a smartphone while driving is a pervasive problem and has been acknowledged as a significant source of road accidents and crashes. Several solutions have been developed to control and minimize risky driving behavior. However, these solutions were mainly designed from the perspective of normal users to be used in a nondriving scenario. In a driving scenario, any deviation from these assumptions (e.g., touching or taping interfaces and looking to visual items) could impact driving performance. In this research paper, we aimed to design and develop a context-aware adaptive user interface framework to minimize driver distraction. The proposed framework is implemented in Android platform, namely, “DriverSense,” which is capable of adapting smartphone user interfaces based on contextual factors including driver preferences, environmental factors, and device usage in real time using adaptation rules. The proposed solution is evaluated both in real time using AutoLog application and through an empirical study by collecting data from 93 drivers through a mixed-mode survey using a questionnaire. Results obtained from AutoLog dataset show that performing activities on smartphone native interfaces while driving leads to abrupt changes in speed and steering wheel angle. However, minimal variations have been observed while performing activities on DriverSense interfaces. The results obtained from the empirical study show that the data are found to be internally consistent with 0.7 Cronbach’s alpha value. Furthermore, an Iterated Principal Factor Analysis (IPFA) retained 60 of a total of 61 measurement items with lower uniqueness values. The findings show that the proposed solution has significantly minimized the driver distractions and has positive perceptions in terms of usefulness, attitude, learnability and understandability, and user satisfaction.