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Automobile Dashboard Technology is Simply Awful

posted by chromas on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the tactile-response-is-for-knobs dept.

MrPlow writes:

When I went car shopping recently, I was amazed by the autonomous technologies in most new models: automatic lane-keeping, braking to avoid collisions and parallel parking, for example.

But I was appalled by the state of dashboard technology. Technology sells, so car companies are all about touch screens and apps these days. Unfortunately, they're truly terrible at designing user interfaces (UIs)—the ways that you, the human, are supposed to interact with it, the car. A good user interface (a) is easy to navigate, (b) puts frequently used controls front and center, (c) gives clear feedback as you make a change and (d) is apparently beyond the capabilities of today's car companies. I asked my Twitter followers to help me nominate the World's Worst Car UI Designs—and I was flooded with responses.

Source:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/automobile-dashboard-technology-is-simply-awful/

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday April 12 2018, @03:56PM (2 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Thursday April 12 2018, @03:56PM (#665982)
    Apparently its supposed to be so that you can stream video from a mobile device to any in-car screens, presumably because someone thought this would be more convenient that having to copy the media in question over to a USB stick, or just mounting the device's internal storage via USB and streaming from that. Probably more useful if you have passengers in the rear seats to keep them entertained if you have some of those headrest mounted screens some cars now come with, or I guess on any dash screen if you're just taking a short break from driving. I suspect the involvement of a PHB in the design process somewhere followed by a bunch of me-tooism from other marques, because I can't imagine enough people actually asked for this for some manger to make a successful business case for it.
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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 12 2018, @04:47PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday April 12 2018, @04:47PM (#666014)

    Two words: Gaming consoles
    You also get AC outlets. Not sure why it's considered child-quieting to have them play FarCry5 until they puke on the back seat, but hey...

  • (Score: 2) by danmars on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:09PM

    by danmars (3662) on Thursday April 12 2018, @05:09PM (#666029)

    Maybe so you can plug in a Nintendo Switch and all non-driver occupants can compete?