Paper Reading #5 - A multi-touch enabled steering wheel: exploring the design space

References:
Pfeiffer, M., et al. (2010). A multi-touch enable steering wheel - exploring the design space. Proceeding of the Acm conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 3355-3360). Atlanta: http://www.sigchi.org/chi2010/. 

Summary:
This paper is about a new way to control functions in a car.  The purpose is to keep the drivers hands on the steering wheel while still allowing them to control things like the radio and GPS. In addition, the driver is able to create different gestures for each function to enable them to customize for what each person feels is natural.  They tested this with a driver in a simulation with a prototype of the steering wheel.  What they found was that many gestures were already in place, like pinching in for zooming out on a map.  

Discussion:
This could be a good idea, but it also could be a bad idea.  It is cool that you can create personalized gestures for different functions.  Also, it will allow the driver to keep their hands on the wheel.  However, there is a risk of the driver accidentally making a gesture which causes something to happen that the driver wasn't expecting.  Another thing is that this may take too much attention for the driver to use which may lead to accidents.  All in all, I think that this has promise, but I would definitely want safety tests first.