Effects of Age-friendly Visual Design in Automotive Central Control HMIs on Older Drivers' Operational Workload

LI Xiaoye; ZHANG Ke

doi:10.19554/j.cnki.1001-3563.2026.12.005

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Packaging Engineering ›› 2026, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (12) : 57-69. DOI: 10.19554/j.cnki.1001-3563.2026.12.005

Special Subject: Innovation of Intelligent Manufacturing Systems for High-end Vehicle Equipment

Effects of Age-friendly Visual Design in Automotive Central Control HMIs on Older Drivers' Operational Workload

LI Xiaoye¹, ZHANG Ke^2,*

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Abstract

With the increasing complexity of automotive central control Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), older drivers face higher cognitive workload and safety risks when using in-vehicle systems due to declines in visual, cognitive, and operational abilities. The work aims to integrate emotional design and age-friendly design to examine the effect of visual interface elements on older users' operational experience and to propose practical optimization strategies for central control HMIs. Based on 408 questionnaire responses from older users, factors related to emotional needs, functional needs, and cognitive workload were extracted. Three groups of interface prototypes were developed, involving different levels of luminance contrast, color saturation, and the presence or absence of button edge cues. 20 older drivers were invited to complete operation tasks in a simulated driving environment. Eye-tracking indicators, including blink count, fixation count, and fixation duration, were recorded, and the NASA-TLX scale was used to evaluate six-dimensional workload. Paired-samples t-tests were conducted to compare different interface conditions. Under the simulated driving tasks and experimental conditions in this work, increasing luminance contrast and color saturation and strengthening button edge cues helped improve the visual attention allocation of older drivers, reduce their subjective workload, and enhance interface readability and operational efficiency. These results provided quantitative evidence for the emotional visual design of age-friendly automotive central control HMIs. Emotional visual design strategies that increase luminance contrast and color saturation and emphasize button edges can reduce older drivers' visual cognitive workload, improve interface readability and operational efficiency, and provide quantitative support for the age-friendly design of intelligent automotive central control HMIs.

Key words

age-friendly design / emotional design / automotive central control / visual cognitive load / Human- Machine Interaction Interface (HMI)

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LI Xiaoye, ZHANG Ke. Effects of Age-friendly Visual Design in Automotive Central Control HMIs on Older Drivers' Operational Workload[J]. Packaging Engineering. 2026, 47(12): 57-69 https://doi.org/10.19554/j.cnki.1001-3563.2026.12.005

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