Hands-Free Siri Interactions Result in Highest Levels of Mental Distraction While Driving

[nagromme]

I can well believe it, and people had better accept that there's a risk so they can control it!

Now, it obviously depends on what are you specifically DOING.

Getting GPS directions home? "Take me home." Eaiser and less distracting than any system I've used. Even easier with Hey Siri in iOS 8. (I keep my iPhone plugged into power and use it as my music source, so Bluetooth is ready to listen.)

Playing a specific song/artist? Menus of any kind are terrible for that!

Changing tomorrow's appointment to a new location and emailing the participants? Well... those other tested options can't even do that, but it's going to drive you insane to do with Siri while driving! To say nothing of all the stuff you can ONLY do with a smartphone--but shouldn't. Just pull over someplace.

And some of those may be easier the first time, and not get much easier from there--while Siri gets really efficient once you know what she does best.

Also:

- Where is your phone? How are you triggering Siri? Pocket or purse fumbling would be dangerous.

- iOS in the Car: it uses voice control, but is different from just mounting Siri and iOS on your dashboard. Designed for less distraction.

- ALL of it should be kept to a bare minimum, and never in high-speed or high-traffic scenarios. "I'm the one nothing can happen to" does not cut it.

Don't pretend something's safe just because you want it. Picking children's body parts out of your front bumper isn't worth it.

 

[GuitarDTO]

Flawed Study is Flawed.

Compare it to driving while manually texting/facebooking/messaging/calling/dialing/doing everything that people do with their phones by hand that they shouldn't be doing. When those things clearly show more distraction than using Siri as a Hands Free, then we can decide whether or not Siri as hands free is worthwhile for safety improvement as a whole. The risk might be that more people using a semi distracting feature is more dangerous than fewer people doing very distractive things by hand. In that case, ban all use beyond simple phone calls over Bluetooth?

 

[0098386]

i turned off siri as soon as i took my phone out of its packaging.

its gimmicky garbage and we dont have the technology (yet) for it to actually be accurate and useful. Also dont want Apple recording and storing my voice

It's not bad for shortcut uses like setting countdown timers. That and "call X" are all its good for.

 

[Olivier Giround]

I'm raising the ******** flag over this. Unless you test the entire data sample of subjects, i.e. the whole human race, the results are flawed. Some people can't operate a roller coaster because they can't even drive for ****, while others can talk on the phone and use a manual transmission at the same time. Everyone's skill level is different.

That sounds like something someone from Virginia would say.

 

[poe diddley]

Honestly I kinda don't jive with this report. I fail to see how navigating a complex menu is somehow less distracting than voice commands. You have to think about what you are saying, but your eyes are still on the road. Did Samsung pay for this study?

 

[Olivier Giround]

Also:

- Where is your phone? How are you triggering Siri? Pocket or purse fumbling would be dangerous.

- iOS in the Car: it uses voice control, but is different from just mounting Siri and iOS on your dashboard. Designed for less distraction.

- ALL of it should be kept to a bare minimum, and never in high-speed or high-traffic scenarios. "I'm the one nothing can happen to" does not cut it.

Don't pretend something's safe just because you want it. Picking children's body parts out of your front bumper isn't worth it.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[rsocal]

I use that gimmicky garbage every day and find it extremely useful.

I think a lot of the inconsistent reports about Siri has to do with accents and what people are trying to do with it. I generally limit it to calling people, setting reminders and alarms, adding events to my calendar, navigation, asking about sports and weather, and controlling music. And for those things, it's a real time saver.

I use Siri all the time with great success as well! With iOS 8 it's even better!

I can only see Siri helping, for me the simple reason being, I prefer other drivers keep their eyes on the road using Siri, not looking down at their phones! Actually I rather see someone talking on the phone or Siri, then looking down at texts!

They should test women putting on mascara or make up while driving, I see this frequently in So Cal.

Never going to stop distracted drivers, but maybe voice recognition will help!

 

[jlseattle]

iPhone interactions with iTunes APP is a HUGE distraction

I think that there are many things about the iPhone that are distracting. When asking Siri to play a song or a playlist it can't find it unless I'm specific. Add on top of that Apple puts all the controls so close together in iTunes music app that I end up pushing show all songs (so I can purchase from them the rest of the album I don't want) when I'm trying to find a song making it impossible to be distraction free. So I'm then clicking around on my phone menus to get to the point where I only see the song I purchased and want to listen to...........................................................

Some of the core Apps that Apple provides are getting more Gimmicky and orientated towards trying to get me to purchase that 99 cent song or full album and causing distractions for me and keeping me from what I need to do (running or what have you).

Clean up Siri but also clean up the app interfaces. Realize we are not sitting down in a chair at home with no distractions while using our phones. If I'm at home I don't use my phone. Make the apps and Siri multitasking friendly. Keep the interfaces simple and stop trying to sell me a 99 cent song when I already spend thousands of dollars on Apple products already. It is demeaning and it makes me feel like a pawn. If iTunes wasn't so integrated into Apple products I would seek out an another alternative.

 

[SgtPepper12]

The problem with Siri is that it's not really reliant when the task is not super simple. Talking to Siri is not like telling a real human to do something. It's more like telling your dog to do something. Sure, a trained dog can do a lot of stuff, but you need to be watching him every second and chances are he'll do tons of random other stuff on the way.

 

[Kabeyun]

But nowadays, if the expectation is that people shouldn't have to pay attention to driving, then piloting their cars needs to be automated.

I agree. As long as you're absolved when your car crashes or hits someone. We're headed towards the worst of both worlds: automated cars (which obviously encourage people to put their minds elsewhere) for which people are still responsible to manually override in case of trouble.

Reform the legal system to absolve everyone of any car crash, and we'll see how quickly driving automation actually catches on.

 

[ChrisCW11]

Is this the beginning of a "new" Apple

I mean, is Apple testing ANYTHING before releasing it, or is Tim Cook just going to step on stage with every product release and say how awesome it its while the rest of us have to learn the hard way when the products fail to deliver or are full of bugs.

Did Apple actually spend years developing AND testing this, putting actual people into cars with the interface and see if it is actually a great user experience, or did they just create an Apple TV-esque UI interface for the car and think that it will be awesome?

Considering how poorly Siri works on iPhones, I can't imaging that the car experience is much better. I've had to repeat something 6 times before Siri got it close to right, and then the results I got back were useless anyways, so I can't imagine trying to ask Siri for directions while driving in a car with all the road noise and/or music playing in the background or people talking was ever going to be an "awesome" experience. I mean if I were Apple I would have made Siri an awesome feature first on the iPhone and THEN introduce it into the car, but Apple needed to rush something to market because Microsoft was starting to dominate in-car systems and Google was right around the corner.

I don't think Apple quite thought this one through fully, like with a lot of what they have been doing lately, and I might hold back the program for a year or two until they can mature the technology and make it as awesome as Apple thinks it is.

 

[akatsuki]

No surprise to me - I find Siri to be completely useless. From the mistakes to the stupidity to the inability to recognize common variants of the same question.

Google Now is superior in capability, my car's voice recognition (and voices) are better.

If Apple really believed in Siri, we would see more improvements, but this will end up being another technology left on the vine to die.

 

[deputy_doofy]

Siri + Location services = Throw iPhone across car.

Me: "Directions to 1st street."
Siri: "I'm sorry. I cannot find 1st street."
OR
Siri: "I found 1st street in Sacramento, CA. It's pretty far from you."

Now, keep in mind, this is from NJ. But, if I specify a zip code in NJ, Siri can find the correct 1st street.

Why can Siri arbitrarily find one hundreds or thousands of miles away, but cannot find the closest "1st street" and then increase its distance to find the next closest one?

Location services, more than Siri, is quite maddening.

 

[Kabeyun]

Look at the woman in the photo. Does this look like someone who is in a normal, undistracted driving situation? Does that seem like a fair test to you?

You're forgetting that that skullcap setup was in place for all tested scenarios, not just Siri. C'mon, man. This isn't their first rodeo.

 

[Elbon]

So, composing a text message, which actually requires looking AWAY from the road, is less distracting than speaking? I find that extremely hard to believe. This seems like a completely bogus study to me.

[edit] I missed the asterisk in the chart. That's composing messages "using hands-free voice commands while driving". That makes more sense.

However, if the participants were not using Siri to compose messages, what were they using?

 

[AlecZ]

Right, and where does having an argument with your spouse land on this chart?

Or mediating a fight between your kids in the backseat?

I want to see some real perspective.

Next they'll be telling us we can't have anyone else in the car.

You should never argue in the car. That's almost as bad as texting. Not only is it distracting, but it can make the driver enraged. That could result either in reckless driving or some very slick traffic maneuvers, but you don't want to risk the former.

----------

So, composing a text message, which actually requires looking AWAY from the road, is less distracting than speaking? I find that extremely hard to believe. This seems like a completely bogus study to me.

I agree.

 

[unplugme71]

Soon it will be illegal to communicate at all in the vehicle. Not to a passenger, to a device, or to yourself.

 

[nagromme]

Clean up Siri but also clean up the app interfaces. Realize we are not sitting down in a chair at home with no distractions while using our phones.

Apple CarPlay!

Some have suggested enabling a CarPlay mode right on-device (no accessories needed) for dash-mounted phones. Especially with a 6 Plus, I like that idea! And it would be one more way to give give Apple a greater initial adoption boost for CarPlay.

Fingers crossed that this is coming.

(Also Siri needs to be more consistent. The people like me who say it works great aren't lying... and neither are the people who have had no luck at all! Accent? Specific tasks different people choose? I don't know, but Siri is clearly not one-size-fits-all. But note that it has already improved some: gradual improvements aren't noticed and don't make blog headlines the way sudden releases do, but they have been happening, and Siri has become a vital tool for me over time. Those improvements are certainly done with. They're ongoing.)

 

[dmccombs]

Actually, I agree with the study. Between the lags that Siri has, and the endless confirmations, I have to focus on Siri too long to get most things accomplished.

I give a command, and think Siri is going to go off and do what I asked, and she starts asking question after questions, or simply says she can't do that. Then you have to start over. Meanwhile, I am trying to focus on the road.

The two things she can do well in the car, IMO, is to add Reminders, and to get very basic weather forecasts.

Siri make phone calls harder than necessary. For example, I say "call John Smith Mobile". Siri: "You have 2 John Smith's, home and mobile, which do you want me to call? WTH, my Android from 4 years ago would know I wanted the mobile, without asking further questions. If I say call John Smith on Mobile, just make the frigging call. LOL

 

[MentalFloss]

I've had Siri since its introduction in Canada, and I still find it inaccurate, clumsy, unintuitive and just plain useless. Siri is the definition of a gimmick.

I find Siri to be very useful, but that is only because I have figured out exactly the correct sequence of words required to do specific tasks. Everything slightly out of the ordinary is like playing the lottery with frustratingly bad odds. iOS 8 has brought some improvements here. Mild improvements though.

I know how to pronounce album names to make Siri recognize them for example. Still, I have never ever managed to get Siri to play Peter Gabriel's album "So". Now with Siri's new real-time voice recognition display, I can even see that it understands the word "so" perfectly well, but then it quickly changes it to "soul" to play Tower of Power's album "Souled Out" instead. Every time. Siri hates Peter Gabriel. Or it just can't imagine that someone would own an album called "So".

In fact, the real-time recognition has really helped me a lot, because until now, I tended to blame my accent. I'm German, and my Siri is set to English (because I refuse to pronounce English-language album titles phonetically in German), so I figured that my English is just too bad. But no, now I can see that Siri understands me quite well most of the time and just decides to ignore what I said.

The funny part is that the voice control that the iPhone had before Siri worked significantly better for my music than Siri does, even though the voice control was purely client-based, while Siri is server-based. You'd expect a server to have more computing power available to deliver better results, but perhaps the fact that the results are not computed on the client side is a part of the problem.

The example with the album "So" shows how Siri could work well enough if it could match what I am saying against what it is actually able to do. I currently have only two playlists on my iPhone. So when I say "Play the playlist" then it could match the next words against the names of my playlists instead of trying to translate these words into something "meaningful", which often results in failure. Machine translation was actually my minor subject at the university. That was in the 90's. I would have thought machine-based language recognition could have made some progress since then, but Siri can't even do some of the basic stuff that we discussed in class 20 years ago. Quite sad, actually.

 

[xgman]

Phones are the new crack. The cat is out of the bag and there is absolutely no reasonable way to stop it. We are just going to have to learn how to drive better while being distracted and learn how to stay away from other distracted drivers. It is 100% a lost cause at this point. It is virtually impossible for the average person top ignore the little smartphone chime at this point. Go ahead and try to ignore it...

 

[Gasu E.]

I'm raising the ******** flag over this. Unless you test the entire data sample of subjects, i.e. the whole human race, the results are flawed. Some people can't operate a roller coaster because they can't even drive for ****, while others can talk on the phone and use a manual transmission at the same time. Everyone's skill level is different.

Yes, they should totally outlaw statistics. And make pi=3.14 by statute. Now let's all howl at the moon together and pee on a tree.

 

[unplugme71]

This all stems from the belief that we need to be talking on the phone, texting, emailing or doing anything phone related while we drive. Outside of calling or receiving calls, none of the other should even be integrated into a car. Your emails and texts can wait until you stop. And honestly, 99% of calls could probably wait too.

Calls are distracting to begin with. Even as a driver, I hate when a passenger is on the phone.

Call ahead before driving or pull over before making a phone call. If you absolutely must make or take a phone call, keep it under 30 seconds.

The only time a phone should be on during a drive is if you are in trouble. At that point leave it on speaker, on the passenger chair. And your call should be to 911 that you are being chased by a killer or something.

 

[MentalFloss]

Siri make phone calls harder than necessary. For example, I say "call John Smith Mobile". Siri: "You have 2 John Smith's, home and mobile, which do you want me to call? WTH, my Android from 4 years ago would know I wanted the mobile, without asking further questions. If I say call John Smith on Mobile, just make the frigging call. LOL

I have the same problem. Pre-Siri iPhone voice control did this perfectly well.

 

[nagromme]

Siri make phone calls harder than necessary. For example, I say "call John Smith Mobile". Siri: "You have 2 John Smith's, home and mobile, which do you want me to call? WTH, my Android from 4 years ago would know I wanted the mobile, without asking further questions. If I say call John Smith on Mobile, just make the frigging call. LOL

Speaking of inconsistent...

I do believe you. That should work for everyone, and for you it clearly doesn't. (Or didn't? Try again to see if the back end has been updated?) But Siri obeys me just fine in that exact situation. If I end the command with "mobile" or "home" or "work," as you describe, that's the call I get--all in one step. If I don't say any of those, then (and only then) she asks me the follow-up Q.

This also works great for Reminders:

"Remind me to call Tom's Mobile at 6pm."

Nothing else to say: at 6pm a reminder will pop up, including a button that will actually place the call to Tom's mobile # with no extra steps. One of my favorite Siri reminder functions.