"It's a "Porch-uh"" (ikazuchi)
03/09/2015 at 12:55 • Filed to: design
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"It's a "Porch-uh"" (ikazuchi)
03/09/2015 at 12:55 • Filed to: design | 3
| 15 |
UX (or User Experience) is how we interact with, well basically anything. Recent "advances" in computers and touch screens in cars have just made things worse. Too many options and functions to look through, extra visual crap cluttering up the screen (see above: why do I need a picture of my car on the screen?), and very, very bad layout/design make your first-gen Android phone look like a design wonder.
Car makers are way behind in UX/UI design for their infotainment systems and seemingly design-focused companies like Telsa are not immune (Have you tried their interface? It reminds me of Windows 98 with a fancy skin). Time to put some effort in, gang.
Designer Geoff Teehan has !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Mostly shaming the high-end manufacturers for their horrible systems ("I paid $845K for this Porsche 918 and got this?").
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A few standouts from the post: You get the same design in a Ferrari California as you do in a Chrysler Town & Country, and Audi got something right with the temp knobs on the TT vents. Plus (Ferrari again), is even screwing up the setup when they hand it over to Apple. I think it's a great read and makes me want to hack the old Android-based unit in my M5 and make something... actually good.
E. Julius
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 13:32 |
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I wonder if the tech boom is contributing to the poor UX standards of automobiles by hogging top talent. I imagine if you're really top 1% talent and can go wherever you want to go, most people are going to pick some insane Apple or Facebook compensation + perk package on the West coast over GM in Detroit.
I'm sure there are tons of other factors, and I'm sure car companies do employ many extremely talented people, but I've just got to think that for the people who really excel in this field most of them don't want to work on cars.
Sweet Trav
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 13:32 |
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So here's my complaint about UX in almost all modern cars.
LCD's are far too bright and don't help with night driving. To see as clear as i did in my older car, i have put the brightness on the second to lowest setting.
Touch screens are flat out dangerous, they require viewing before touching, they offer no feedback that you have pressed the button like a physical button reacts. the biggest offender is the temp control system in most modern cars. Give me three dials, one for how hard the fan blows, one for temperature and one for where it blows. The 2009 Saturn Vue had the utterly perfect design for this piece of equipment. Why over complicate something that can be so simple.
Here is a picture for example
If you want a better user experience, build a more engaging car to drive. make things simple, but unique and cool. perhaps I'm a Luddite because i still prefer buttons, but buttons don't move or disappear.
Another complaint that I have is the very limited functionality that the LCD package in a modern car actually shows. Case in point my 2014 ford fusion
Notice the grey sedan on the right side of the LCD. it is always there. I didnt forget my car was a four door driving to work, why can you show me something important there, like oil pressure, or tire pressures, even a digital speedo. (For the record there is a MPG meter, and some other cool features in the LCD screen, but the little grey fusion is egregious)
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It's a "Porch-uh"
> Sweet Trav
03/09/2015 at 13:36 |
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Bugatti gets it.
Agreed on the touch screens. The HVAC controls on the Tesla Model S require you to look down to find them. They recommend using the voice commands while driving, but they are horrible and only work 1/3rd of the time.
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It's a "Porch-uh"
> E. Julius
03/09/2015 at 13:39 |
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Agreed, but I think even mid-tier UX talent would do a substantially better job. I'm sure a lot of the issues have to do with the controls and (especially) infotainment systems being off-the-shelf components for many manufacturers. They slap on their "look" and call it a day to keep costs down and, like the article mentions, run the same system across their entire model range.
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Sweet Trav
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 13:39 |
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I mean honestly shouldn't the most complicated part about operating a vehicle be... driving?
BorkBorkBjork
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 13:39 |
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I think the major problem with these interfaces is speed. I actually like the CUE system on my wifes Caddy, I think it's attractive and pretty well laid out. Problem is, it's slow as balls to load anything, which causes endless frustration that leads to people just resorting to their phones for everything. If these systems had more power, and were as lightning-fast as an iPad, then many of these complaints would vanish. But not all, because I still want to download apps to my car's UI.
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It's a "Porch-uh"
> Sweet Trav
03/09/2015 at 13:41 |
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That's the point of good design. It should fade to the background so you don't even notice it.
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E. Julius
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 13:47 |
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Yeah that all makes sense. Hopefully these damn things get better sometimes soon.
thebigbossyboss
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 13:48 |
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The infotainment system in Cavalier is great. I have a radio with tactile controls. The "tainment" part comes when the check engine light comes on.
Kevin Barrett
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 14:10 |
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The problem with modern cars is that the manufacturers are hiring UX people at all. UX for automobiles has been sorted and perfected for decades, and all the rest is superfluous distraction. Touch screens have no business being in a car—their use demands the driver's visual, proprioceptive, and analytical attention, whereas hard controls only use proprioception (you might call it "muscle memory"). LCDs provide a dynamic display for more settings than a driver should be giving their attention to, and in non-optimal formats. Circles and needles show proportions and ranges in a way that the human brain can read in the periphery of vision. Gimme buttons, switches, and analog gauges, and leave the rest to tablets.
Tim (Fractal Footwork)
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 14:54 |
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I guess the system in the new XC90 is supposed to be pretty good, no experience with it myself.
And I really love the temp readings/set point adjustments in the center of the air con diffusers of the recent Audis, and I think the C7 has something similar as well.
Nibby
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 22:59 |
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BAD UX EVERYWHERE
srs
gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/09/2015 at 23:42 |
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Yet another reason why I prefer the bare-bones 2015 Micra we have at work over the other newer cars, (2013 Focii). No stupid infotainment. It shouldn't take me several minutes to figure out how to change the radio station. Obviously there's a learning curve, but frankly, I don't want there to be one. I just want it to work, dammit!
Manuél Ferrari
> It's a "Porch-uh"
03/13/2015 at 16:05 |
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For this reason I think sports cars from the 90s and early 2000s are going to look a lot better in 20 years than the cars from today. The digital UIs already look hideous now so imagine how awful they will look in 20 years.
The cars that didn't come with navigation or any digital instrument clusters are going to look a lot better than those that did.
therealmoo
> E. Julius
03/20/2015 at 00:35 |
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This is a huge part of the problem, I go to a very well known university (that recently had some idiots involved in destroying ski resorts) for engineering and the automakers struggle big time to attract C.S.E. talent away from the west coast. When you're at a automaker company info session with 120 students and only 6 of them are C.S.E, you know it's bad.
I think half the issue is that the automakers pay a typical engineering salary for the midwest, which is generally ~$30k a year less than what the west coast offers and they see all their friends getting. When you account for the west coast's inflated costs of living it's fairly comparable, but the larger numbers still sway people. So until the big 2.5 start offering a bit higher salary and a compelling reason to work for them over tech giants (along with a good reason to live in freezing Michigan), they're going to have trouble attaining programming talent.