If your device needs printed instructions for basic should-be-obvious operations, your user interface design is defective. (This is a Tesla showroom.)
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@cstross i'm no tesla fan, but i think the purpose of this is different and deliberate -- make the owners feel good for knowing how to open the door, unlike the dumb n00bs who can't even open the door … doesn't that fit what you'd expect from elon's tesla?
@cstross What baffles me is that Hyundai makes a much better and comparably priced electric sedan, the Ioniq6, but the Tesla Model 3 outsells it in the U .S. by about 10 to 1. Madness.
@cstross do they also provide instructions for the "3 shells" ? 😅
@cstross
Oh, Teslas are fucking death traps.
@cstross while this is bad, my favorite of these was the BMW i8. There was a video of a a training session for sales people at a BMW sales room. If someone asked to see the engine bay, only a factory trained technician was allowed to open it.
1. You needed a special tool 2. Open driver side door 3. Put tool in hole in door jam, grab hook and slightly pull 4. Repeat on passenger door 5. With two people lift hood 1.5 inches vertically. 6. Tilt hood from towards the front upto 45 degrees.
@cstross I've been half-arsedly looking at 2nd hand cars as my car needs replacing this year. Every lot I've been to, the Teslas are the ones with misted windows in the cold. Not that I'd buy one.
![Frans Super 🇺🇦🇵🇸🍋[FCKPVV]](https://media.mstdn.social/accounts/avatars/109/262/368/122/349/251/original/2fabef487ac5ca1d.jpg "Frans Super 🇺🇦🇵🇸🍋[FCKPVV]")
@cstross The chance of me being found in a Tesla showroom is as likely as penguins in the wild in the arctic near polar bears. The car obstructing my user basic instincts is unforgivable.
@cstross Yes... THere are many things on Teslas that are really non intuitive, or simply worse than what they replace. Change for the sake of it. The customer must bend to adapt to the "design" rather than designing for utility... What do you expect from a ketamine addled nazi?
@cstross tja, design is like a joke: if you have to explain it, it wasn't good.
@cstross I read a book titled “The Design of Everyday Things” in college that greatly influenced my design philosophy as an engineer. The author’s main point was “doors should not need owners manuals.” This example clearly fails that test.
@cstross I wouldn't care if they were only affecting their own awful customers, but by glamorizing these shit UI elements, they've got all the other car manufacturers copying them and endangering everyone. NTM kids who didn't consent to die in a fire.
You've sort of put your finger on a missed opportunity in motor vehicle #marketing.
Instead of all vehicle manufacturers having the current lot of samey weird advertisements where unicorns chase them down the streets in camera drone shots whilst children shout 'Play Peppa Pig at max volume!' at the computer from the rear seats and it suddenly does, there's a niche for a manufacturer to be disruptive …
… and run an #advertising campaign where they simply show that *their* cars have proper door handles, physical control knobs that don't need one to keep reading a screen away from looking at the road, and where a 5 year old cannot cause a motorway pile-up with 'Hey Google! Emergency stop!'.
It's a product differentiator. The marketers could use it.
@cstross
#MotorVehicles #Google #GoogleGemini #SafeAtAnySpeed
@JdeBP @dalias @cstross I'm kinda excited about the potential of this thing. I think my favorite part is that there is no infotainment system. If you get speakers at all (they're optional) the vehicle just shows up to your phone as a bluetooth speaker, and you dock your phone on the dash where the stereo would be.
https://www.slate.auto/en
@cstross core user interface interface actions are like jokes: if you have to explain them, the problem is not in the audience.
@cstross That was written by a tech author. Why didn't the tech author not say "I'm not writing that, if those instructions are needed your product is crap"?
@TimWardCam@c.im @cstross@wandering.shop
Probably because those people are only involved when it's way too late and they want to keep the job.
@TimWardCam @mort NO LOVE for modern electronics where the paper manual is a 10cm square glossy white pamphlet printed in pale grey 4-point type that's so tiny and illegible I need to photograph and enlarge it before I realize it's not the manual, it's just the warranty declaration.
@TimWardCam @cstross @mort could be worse. The qr code on a cheap covid mask from 2021 I had lying around went to a porn site.
@TimWardCam @cstross @mort
My 2013 five-gear manual Corolla has 470k on the odometer. I'll be soon looking to, reluctantly, replace it. Any suggestions on the lowest-tech car available?
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@cstross The door handle did not need disrupting.
Apparently you open the glovebox from a pull down menu. That didn’t need disrupting either.
Having ridden in one as an Uber, they also appear to have disrupted the concept of “needing suspension”. I now never select “eco” when hiring an Uber in case I get a Tesla. I’m in my 50s. My back doesn’t deserve that.
@goatsarah @cstross "What if a car, but instead of a car, it's just a high-tech simulation of what it feels to be trapped inside a VR experience jointly designed by a high-end hi-fi manufacturer and the people who created the user interface for your health insurance company's website?”
Agree this design is bad and dangerous. China may ban it.
But, is there a cultural element to obviousness: is a door handle obvious to someone who hasn't seen one used before? That unobvious link between lever and larger body action used to be sufficient to stop forest dwellers like bears, but no more. They've even learned to operate hidden trashbin handles. I have seen a foreigner completely stumped by a can opener. The Irish made a sport out of stumping foreigners 🤣
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@avi2022 @cstross is a handle on a door obvious? yes, if it looks like a handle. it's a space to put your fingers when pulling something. tell me about a culture that does not have handles?
the aztecs had no wheels, but, what do you want to bet they had handles?
edit: actually if you're looking to open a door then you'll probably put your fingers in a handle if there is one, whether you recognise it as a handle or not. you're looking for purchase to pull on the door…
As it turns out, door handles may be a somewhat recent thing after standardized manufacturing - see Osbourn Dorsey’s 1878 patent for an “improvement in door-holding devices”.
Japan favored sliding panels with recessed pulls. Early America / frontiers favored "latch strings".
Older setups usually separated latch action from locking.
The Aztecs didn't use swinging doors with hinges, instead using a curtain or mat with a bell for privacy, and security was cultural.
@avi2022 @fishidwardrobe I'm reasonably sure I read that the Romans didn't have hinges for most (if not all) of their doors—the door was just lifted into place across the doorway and barred from inside at night.
@cstross A terrible car, the product of a terrible company owned by an extremely terrible person
@cstross Why would anyone want to get inside a literal Nazi-car? Putting aside neonazis of course
@cstross more importantly, safety critical, a number of people have burned alive in Teslas because their door controls became inoperative and they did not know where the emergency manual release latch is.
Also, China just banned recessed door handles like Tesla's. They may help aerodynamics a tiny bit, but once again a safety hazard.
@cstross Let‘s not start talking about the emergency handle under the diriver’s side floor mat.