151–160 of 523 posts
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That's pretty weird and indicates your phone or its touchscreen might be defective, you should get it looked at, because other than with old resistive touchscreen phones I've never had capacitive touchscreen phones need multiple presses.
I assume you're young? Finger capacitance can reduce quite significantly with age.
'He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen." ' I am a big believer in keeping "product people" away from UI design for dangerous machinery. The eyes and the attention of the driver should be on the road. All the audio visual noise from the car is just plain dangerous. I don't want my car to draw my attentio…
The low fuel, low wiper fluid, and forward collision warnings sound like they were all implemented a little clumsily. What do you think the best implementation would look like? Seems it would still have to strike a balance. It's dangerous to tell the driver they're low on fuel if we distract them. But it's also dangerous for a driver to run out of fuel on the highway if we didn't catch their attention. Also guessing…
s/a little/very/;
> What do you think the best implementation would look like?
We already had one! Dashboard indicator lamps have been an international standard (ISO 2575) since 1982.
> But it's also dangerous for a driver to run out of fuel on the highway if we didn't catch their attention.
Yes, it is. But the key word is "if". The product folks involved in making these UI/UX decisions were more concerned with whether or not they could (read: "chimp attract" for "feature parity" to "drive sales") than with whether or not they should (read: "should we be manufacturing two ton death machines that act like nannies?"). Where is the research that provides the answers to the questions "how likely is it that the driver isn't aware of how much fuel is in the vehicle?", "are our customers really as stupid as we think they are?", or even "what's the downside of training our customers to accept a more mindless state of existence while piloting giant metallic flesh-tearing bone crushers packed full of explosive hydrocarbons and squishy humans?"
> The general public though… uh oh!
You can come down from your ivory tower at any time. We have tacos down here and we all enjoy them.
To quote the late, great Lou Holtz, "they put their pants on the same way we do". I don't think there's ever been a time in all of my years on this planet that I've gotten into a car to go on a highway journey of any length and not looked at the fuel gauge. Oftentimes, my passenger will even ask me how much gas is in the tank. Glancing at the fuel gauge should be the first thing that any motor vehicle operator looks at when climbing into the captain's chair. Maybe I'm at that stage of life where I'm no longer capable of comprehending the manner in which the younger generations experience the world, but getting into an automobile and driving off without knowing how much fuel you have is like walking out the front door without confirming that your shoe laces are tied.
This constant othering of "the general public" without any research to back it up really grinds my gears, to use a contextually appropriate idiom. Please stop.
Unmentioned is touchscreens frequently don't work. I often have to make repeated presses on my iphone until it registers. The same with swipes. Since there is no audible or tactile feedback, this cannot work well while keeping your eyes on the road.
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I have a cold, but all in all I'm doing very well. Thanks for asking! My portable electronics devices are Apple. But there are other touchscreen products I have, like the thermostat and the one in the car. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. Of course, buttons wear out. The membrane cracks or the conductive material rubs off. It happens with my computer keyboard. Fortunately, the keyboards are cheap and I replace the…
Wow. > I often have to make repeated presses on my iphone until it registers. This makes me really curious. And you seem to have a problem with all your Apple devices. That’s why I wondered whether you’re experiencing that only with Apple or whether it happens with Android devices as well. Perhaps you could borrow a friend’s, or try using a demo phone at a store etc. Also have other people use your problematic device…
I do have a samsung tablet, and have not had issues with the touch screen.
The swipe up thing on my iphone is particularly irritating in its unreliability.
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I agree but at the same time cars are requiring less of our attention. Forget autonomous driving for a moment and consider lane change alerts for cars in your blind side, automatic braking if you come up too fast on the car ahead, active lane keeping, smart cruise control. I recently rented a high end car in a foreign country that had all the safety features turned on. Before I arrived I was worried about driving in…
When the car actually drives itself completely, I think they will be safer than human drivers. All of these half measures are pretty concerning to me. I think they let drivers feel more comfortable, despite paying less attention, and I think their failure modes may often be much worse than the (human-driven) crashes they purport to prevent. Anecdote: I once had a rental car with alane-keeping assistance system that w…
It’s interesting to watch Waymo vehicles drive distinctly off center in their lane depending on what’s around. I’m not convinced that Waymo has dialed in the right tradeoff between its own distance from other cars vs driving politely and predictably, but they are certainly very aware of what’s around them.
(Yes, I switched it to a mode where it would beep but not try to steer once it was safe to do so.)
Please bring back physical gauges, too. I don't want to stare at a lcd while I'm driving.
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For years, vehicles have had a little light that comes on when you are below about 50 miles of range. It's next to the fuel gauge. I've always heard it called the "walk light", which I presume is a reference to the fact that, if you don't do something, you may have to start walking soon. My car has a little screen in the dash where it usually shows my range, or the current temperature - information that I check when…
Forward and rear collision warnings have saved me several times in 3 different cars, including slamming on the brakes as I was backing up and then a MUNI bus that I didn’t see flew by. I’ve also been in 4 accidents that were my fault (one on the same street, a MUNI bus blocked my view of another car that had the right of the way) and 2 that weren’t but I wasn’t able to avoid them. I will always buy a new car with the…
The fix is you should be taking MUNI more often and a defensive driving course. Maybe be forced to drive a manual transmission car through Pac Heights until you can't. Your insurance premiums must be crazy.
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The same way they've fought cheaper ICE brands: delivering higher quality materials, a fancy badge and a great driving experience. Currently the Chinese EVs are cheap, but far from Merc levels of refinement.
I really don't know about that. Mercedes used to mean high, tactile, audible mechanical quality. You'd hear it while closing the doors, you'd see it when looking at perfectly assembled dash, you'd hear it while driving and you'd be happy with it when clocking 500k miles with just regular maintenance. I remember those cars - I think the quality started tanking around late 1990s. Right now its just ok. My friends S cla…
'He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen." ' I am a big believer in keeping "product people" away from UI design for dangerous machinery. The eyes and the attention of the driver should be on the road. All the audio visual noise from the car is just plain dangerous. I don't want my car to draw my attentio…