Hacker News Reader

Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

Tesla has the most complex infotainment system in the industry. More complex software generally has more issues and complaints.

People are going to have more issues and encounter more problems when using Microsoft Word versus Notepad. Word would therefore perform worse in a survey like this. That doesn't mean Notepad is a better piece of software or that Word users would want to switch to Notepad given the option. So what is this survey really telling us?

View on HN

"Tesla has the most complex infotainment system in the industry."

... which is a major design flaw.

Tesla's fallen into the trap of thinking that minimalism is the same as simplicity, elegance and ease of use.

Does complex imply harder to use? I find Tesla’s system easier to use than most infotainment systems. I would argue more features != harder to use.

I think the point is that people are more likely to get into a collision if they're messing around with an infotainment system when they should be keeping their eyes on the road. A simple radio+CD player with physical buttons for everything is easy to operate without distracting the driver.

It is naive to assume that if a car has a simple radio+CD player with physical buttons that the user will only ever use a simple radio+CD player with physical buttons. Many people will instead use Bluetooth, an aux input, or a radio transmitter to connect their phone to the stereo. Now everything is offloaded from the car's infotainment system to a phone which is even more difficult and dangerous to use while driving.

Don't own a Tesla, but from what I understand most things can be controlled from the steering wheel controls.

It’s true. There are some common controls that are not as easy to access as you would like, but the common stuff is physically interfaced. I do think they took the design principle of avoiding physical controls a little too far, but in general it is the most fun and interesting car we have owned. Anecdotally, it is different enough that my 65 year old mother in law doesn’t drive it because she is not comfortable with it.

I'm stuggling to come up with another meaning of complex that doesn't infer that something would be harder to use.

Seems to me that almost all technology tends to become both more complex and easier to use over time. What's easier to use, a pdp 11 or an iphone? Or a plane from the 1960s vs a modern one that can fly itself? Making things easier to use in these scenarios necessitates additional complexity.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/complex

I was using adjective definition 1. You are assuming adjective definition 2.

That is what I like to explore in UI design. Can you have a large number of features, a complex set of features, that are easy to use? Can you optimize for the common 80% while making the remaining 20% usable? I think of complex pieces of software I use and most of it would not be things I classify as “hard to use”

I am complex but, alas, have found that I am easy to use.

Considering many people are reporting issues, according to that study, it seems to be hard to use.

Anyone I’ve shown my car to has been able to figure it out quite easily. I don’t understand what’s complex if you have used a touchscreen you should understand how to use it. I don’t do a lot of fiddling around with my radio I only skip between a few things so once they are saved as favorites I’m good.

I mean I get how people might not know how to open the glovebox but it was one of the first things I was shown when I picked up my car. Once again I almost never have to open it.

That is 100% a matter of opinion. To use the example from the first comment, the Tesla Spotify integration isn't perfect. That doesn't mean it is a better choice to simply not integrate Spotify into the infotainment system. It also doesn't mean that non-Tesla drivers simply aren't using Spotify. They might be fiddling with the playlists on their phone which is even more dangerous than fiddling with the playlists on the infotainment system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com