After Ratings Drop, Ford Reworks Unpopular Touch Screens | Hacker News Reader

After Ratings Drop, Ford Reworks Unpopular Touch Screens

nytimes.com

26 pointscpeterso22 comments

Ah, this brings back memories of the old "If Detroit designed cars like Microsoft designed software" jokes of the late 90s...

I once had the opportunity to chat with Woz. Somehow we got on the subject of cars and he told me that he had a Toyota and a Mercedes. He explained that the Toyota had all the latest and greatest technology. More features than you could shake a stick at, so to speak. But! To cram in all those features, the engineers had a monumental task. The end result was that you, as the driver, were forced to adapt to the car.

On the other hand, he told me, while the Mercedes had less features you could tell that the first thing the designers had drawn in, when sketching out the design, was the driver.

That sounds weird. Toyota generally waits for a technology to become mainstream before using it. They also work with very few suppliers (mainly Denso). Mercedes on the other hand usually have the latest tech. They used a fully graphical instrument cluster years before anyone else. I think Woz' comment has more to do with the cultural differences of Japan and Germany, than technology.

Right. The fundamental problem here is that the old school buttons and dials have a hidden logic to them: namely that you can distinguish and grasp them without taking your eyes from the road.

This seems like a general UI consideration for physical objects. If the object is being aimed at something or demands the use of vision, the affordances should be designed for sight-free operation. Examples: a gun's trigger, a camera's button, a car's gear shift, a microscope's stage adjustment.

For comparison, here are before and after shots for the XM radio display --

Before: http://image.automobilemag.com/f/29104541+w750+st0/2011-ford...

After: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/11/myford...

Thanks for the screenshots. I have to say, both before and after look pretty horrendous.

The "before" screenshot is plagued with Fitt's Law and Hick's Law violations. The "after" fixes some problems, but there are still far too many items for a driver to quickly acquire their target, and the opportunity for mode errors are off the charts. The amount of attention required to use this system while driving is a genuine danger to others on the road.

so I opened these two images in two tabs, and now looking at them I honestly don't know which is the "improved" one. The black/red one looks a lot less messy, but still kinda like a first draft from a high school student. the other one's just plain horrible though, so I'll guess the black/red one

Ignore(for now ;p) the looks this was a usability upgrade.

I think since Ford is sending the upgrade USB sticks directly to customers it would now be quite easy for someone with malicious intent to send out fake "upgrade" USB sticks to unsuspecting Ford owners. I'm not sure how dangerous it would be from a safety, ram-car-into-tree, point of view but certainly they would have access to any GPS data.

I'd be very surprised if a system like that doesn't check a signature before applying an update.

Touchscreens don't belong in cars. Many states are banning texting while driving, but auto manufacturers are adding basically the same distracting user experience in their cars and calling it a feature.

Actually (and annoyingly) in many vehicles the controls are disabled while the vehicle is in motion. This is very inconvenient when you have a passenger trying to operate the console (such as input destination or do other actions) but the car won't let you because you're not completely stopped.

mmm, a fix for that (not perfect) could be to activate the screen when the passenger airbag is on (since most cars now have a sensor in the seat). Sure the driver can still play with the screen but if you have a passenger it shouldn't be off. Alternatively the screen could be setup so the viewing angle changes when there is a passenger (I believe that's possible but I might be wrong.)

One car manufacturer even uses a slogan like "for today's connected youth". It's frightening.

The touchscreen in my 7 year old Prius does fine. Of course most of the touch-screen functionality (volume, AC on/off, phone call/end) also exists on the steering wheel to reduce the time you're on the screen.

GOTTA COMPETE WITH THE IPAD! TOUCH AND SWIPE! PINCH AND ZOOM YOUR FAVORITE FM STATIONS! POST ON FACEBOOK WITH A THREE FINGER TWIRL GESTURE!

I'm not sure how bad Ford's touchscreen was, but this problem isn't unique to them - car UIs in general still feel way behind what we are capable of. The touchscreen on my 2011 Lexus is pretty disappointing - not very intuitive and often really slow - and feels like something you'd expect from a 10 year old car. I can't imagine Ford's offering being much worse.

To be honest, I'd rather see more investment into Siri-like voice capabilities in a car, rather than improving the touchscreen. Some navigation tasks might be a little tricky, but I think most car-related tasks lend themselves well to voice interaction, and it is certainly less distracting than messing with a touchscreen.

Oh man, MyTouch was garbage. Complete crap. I test drove a Flex and was just amazed at how awful it was. No touch feedback, sluggish response, dynamic knobs and buttons meant you couldn't operate it blindly, and a milky backlit LCD screen that still messed with your night vision even when it was supposed to be displaying black. (OLED would do better here.)

I was stunned. I'm a geek and I think it's crap. I can't imagine technoluddites being any more charitable.

You may laugh, but when Sync/MyTouch hangs in my EDGE all I have to do is: stop my car, shut down engine, open driver door, close driver door, start the engine - and it reboots!!! : )

Where, oh where is the Apple of this space?

Here, I'd wager: http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/model?class=S&mod...

Edit: Skip to the "Audio & Entertainment" section to see how you can have modern technology without the confusion. Especially check out the "SPLITVIEW front-seat entertainment system". A screen that can show separate views to the driver and front seat passenger? Yes, please!

nit: that's not unique in the class

Range Rovers have that too and I think the Jaguar XF.

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