Evaluation of Human Factors Design Guidelines for Traveler Information Systems

Within the human factors community, there is a growing concern regarding the nature and utility of human factors handbooks and guidelines materials. For example, it is well established that human factors guidelines following traditional formats for presenting information are not perceived as being useful, and are often ignored by designers. This paper describes the development and evaluation of human factors design guidelines for Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) and Commercial Vehicle Operations (CVO). A draft version of the guidelines was reviewed and evaluated by 32 experts in the field. The reviewers were asked to provide detailed comments on the guidelines and to complete a set of rating scales that addressed both general and specific features of the guidelines. Overall, the draft design guidelines were perceived by the ATIS design/research community as being clear, relevant, and easy-to-use. Importantly, they were seen as representing an improvement over existing human factors reference sources.