A Framework for Adapting In-Car Touchscreen Interfaces to Driver Behaviors, Perception, and Cognition

Although in-car touchscreens expand interaction possibilities, they risk compromising driver safety and vigilance. We propose a data- and expert-informed framework for designing adaptive touchscreens that respond to a driver’s usage profile and cognitive state, maximizing usability while mitigating safety risks. First, in a driving simulator study, we find that cognitive load slows touchscreen button selections by 20% and produced shorter, more frequent off-road glances. We also find that enlarging buttons improves selection speeds by 0.3 seconds but at the cost of requiring more display pages. Next, these findings informed a co-design session with expert in-cabin designers, generating guidelines for adaptive interfaces that balance usability and safety. These guidelines form the basis of our Profile-State Adaptive (PSA) framework, which integrates driver profiles with cognitive states to guide interface adaptations. We then extend the framework to include a quantitative Time-Cost model as well as design patterns for adaptive layouts across usage profiles and cognitive demands.