10 ms·

Looks Can Kill: The Deadly Results of Flawed Design

100 points by ivank 10y ago

AMWJ 10y ago
I find it fascinating how many chat applications exist, and how success is almost completely due to design. Most chat features you find in newer chat apps, like Kik or Whatsapp existed since AIM. Yet users are very willing to jump ship and grab onto an application with the same, perhaps fewer, feature if it's more eye-catching, or intuitive. It's a nice reminder that part of innovation in the tech industry is UI, and if you innovate a new interface for an existing service, it can be as ground-breaking as any other innovation in the industry.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  No, i think the jump was technical. AIM and similar gen IM protocols expected that you were using a desktop or laptop with a persistent connection. This would break on iPhone because Apple didn't allow backgrounding. Kik and similar took over once Apple introduced their push notification service. This allowed apps to behave closer to text messaging.
AMWJ 10y ago
I find it fascinating how many chat applications exist, and how success is almost completely due to design. Most chat features you find in newer chat apps, like Kik or Whatsapp existed since AIM. Yet users are very willing to jump ship and grab onto an application with the same, perhaps fewer, feature if it's more eye-catching, or intuitive. It's a nice reminder that part of innovation in the tech industry is UI, and if you innovate a new interface for an existing service, it can be as ground-breaking as any other innovation in the industry.
WalterBright 10y ago
The design of pilot controls in aircraft has a great deal of effort going into making them intuitive, and still serious mistakes are made. It's a very hard problem, and what's obvious in hindsight escapes nearly everyone in foresight.
cordite 10y ago
This seems to be something the medical industry hits every month with medications and materials. The human is prone to an incorrect interpretation of the specifics and may take action or not take action improperly because of that. How to identify similarly spelled medications as different? Is the dosage or dilution magnitudes apart without visibly distinct and obvious clues? More information about how the medical world handles these kinds of issues is at the Institution of Safe Medical Practices [1]. [1]: http://www.ismp.org/Newsletters/default.asp http://www.ismp.org/Newsletters/default.asp
- jrowley 10y ago
  I heard recently of a patient that took some prescribed medication before her surgery, but instead of taking 5 mg as prescribed she ended up taking 5 grams, which induced a near fatal stroke. You could argue that better design could have prevented this from happening. Edit: The mistake was between mg and ml, so the person drank 5ml of a 5X concentration drug. Either way a terrible, preventable result.
  - dmoy 10y ago
    mg ml vs mg g is roughly comparable for many liquid, so still roughly the same.
    - AstralStorm 10y ago
      Missing the point. The doses by mass are specified in terms of (main) active substance, not the whole solution.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    There was a famous airline accident where gallons of fuel was confused with liters. The fix (obvious in hindsight) was to standardize on gallons.
    - sitharus 10y ago
      You're thinking of the Gimli Glider, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider Boeing had just transitioned their FQIS from lbs to kgs (aircraft fuel is always weighed, volume changes with temperature). The flight crew hadn't had enough familiarisation and miscalculated. All aircraft now calculate fuel usage in SI units.
rdtsc 10y ago
http://jalopnik.com/heres-the-problem-with-jeeps-recalled-gear-shifter-1782364420 http://jalopnik.com/heres-the-problem-with-jeeps-recalled-ge... That monostable shifter is just an incredible bad idea. It is baffling why they do it that way. Was shifting a huge problem which needed to be solved in automotive industry? Guessing someone wanted a promotion by claiming "I redesigned the shifter". I understand when GMail kept changing its interface every 6 months -- it would correspond probably with year / mid-year reviews and ever designer probably wanted to say "I redesigned blah blah". That is just email. But this is a car and it can easily kill people. Why couldn't they just instead add more lights to the dashboard, or rear view cameras or something of that sort.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Haven't tried one, but i find myself thinking of the pedal shifter on a motorcycle.
- latortuga 10y ago
  Astoundingly, in the video in the linked article, the person doing the demo incorrectly reports the gear he shifted into - he reports shifting into neutral when he really was in Reverse! There is also just one chime when opening the door which could just as easily be "you don't have your seatbelt on". Just amazingly bad.
  - WWLink 10y ago
    I have a 300 with that shifter. If you open the door with the car not in gear it will bong bong bong bong bong bong bong at you. But it'll also do that if you open the door with the engine running. I always found it amusing too. For a car, the cars that have that ZF shifter are really heavy cars. The other amusing thing is HOW MUCH WORK they put into that shifter. It's doesn't just bounce back to its home position. It's also got some kind of ratcheting mechanism in it, so that when you shift from park to drive you can "feel" the shifter clicking from park to reverse to neutral to drive. That mechanism has lots of clickety parts in it that will probably fail with time. Why the heck did they do that?! Of all the things you could do with an electronic shifter this seems like the worst thing you could possibly do. They could have used a dial like they do now ,or even buttons. Anything. Why try so hard to replicate something - and take up so much space internally, when they could have just used the real deal? The gated shifter that they used on the 5 speeds was a better shifter anyway.
post_break 10y ago
There is an antifreeze sold in a green pop top can that looks similar to beer. I wish I could find the photo of it.
- phpnode 10y ago
  Looks refreshing! http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/2/c/vintage-markline-500-gas-line-anti-freeze-can-12-ounces-61d86f78538eb364fecc4efd6245af3f.jpg http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/2/c/vintage-mark...
- homero 10y ago
  https://i.redd.it/igpx1sl1ex9x.jpg https://i.redd.it/igpx1sl1ex9x.jpg
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    Is it legal to sell that in the U.S.? It wouldn't be allowed on the shelf in Australia.
pxlpshr 10y ago
I have that shifter on my Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's been recalled but I actually love it. Maybe I'm an outlier but it's not that dissimilar from electronic shifters in BMWs and Mercedes. My girlfriend's Mercedes acts like a turn signal on the steering column and it's 10x more confusing to operate. I hate it. The primary safety difference is that it auto-parks itself when the door is opened. Chrysler's recall adds the same self-parking functionality. I don't agree that shifters should work the way they've always worked. They warrant a redesign because long throwing shifters eat up a bunch of precious center console space. An area where stuff is often over-packed by the driver or co-pilot; phones, cups, coins, paperwork, keys, wallet. Most of this demands short-term, easy access storage. If better safety mechanisms were considered in the Chrysler, I doubt we'd be talking about this shifter as a failure. Nobody is criticizing Mercedes' exceptionally poor design – unless you read car enthusiast forums – because they added better safety processes.
- astrocat 10y ago
  I know the BMW shifters you're talking about, but there is one significant difference: the mechanism for entering Park is not like the rest of the gear selection options (Drive, Neutral, Reverse). It's a button on the top of the shifter. As such, when you want to put the car in park, you push a button, you don't move the shifter. I'm not saying this is a great shifter design overall, but it DOES mean that you quickly learn a completely different routine for putting the car in park. Basically: "If I want the car to be moving, then move the shifter. If I want the car to stop moving, push the button."
  - kpil 10y ago
    It's like that on Mitsubishi Outlander Phev. There is a separate Park button, and I think there is no risk of confusion. I have actually occasionally powered down the car when I just wanted to put it in park, but there is no real danger in that. It automatically engages "Park" when powering down, but not when exiting the car, but maybe it should as long as the car is not moving when the door is opened. Actually, as the car is aware of that no one is sitting in the drivers seat, it would be trivial for Mitsubishi to program it to prevent the car from moving, or at least starting to move from a stand still using the ordinary brakes. I guess that would be true for all cars with airbags, which would be every car sold, at least in in USA and EU. Maybe it should be mandatory.
Artoemius 10y ago
Every time I see an issue like this, I think of this Steve Jobs quote: "Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you." (That is, you can count on some things having been made by idiots.)
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Idiots? nah. More that one develop mental myopia if one wander the same proverbial halls all day. One start to expect things others may not, or overlook details. Its how the mind can operate with such apparent efficiency. After all its primary concern is danger, procreation and food in that order. And danger is in nature most often something that is not present every day, and thus stands out like the proverbial sore thumb once it shows up.
- danso 10y ago
  Not just idiots, but sometimes committees of idiots. And often, committees of smart folks who unintentionally create idiotic things.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Also consider that more often than not, making something useful is not a business goal.
  - pluma 10y ago
    "None of us is as dumb as all of us"
csours 10y ago
Does anyone know how NASA modified presentations after the report mentioned in the article? Only show one single piece of data per safety slide? Mandate large fonts and color coding on safety slides?
- unexistance 10y ago
  not exactly slide-related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11719953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11719953
  - csours 10y ago
    Excellent reference, thanks.
ccvannorman 10y ago
This angers me as a consumer of automobiles. I abhor poor automobile design and this takes the cake. This is also why I hate a) air conditioning and radio controls that do not have clear positions for their status, forcing me, the person driving a big automobile in traffic, to divert my gaze to inspect them to ensure I have the correct setting b) Tesla's monolith faceless screen which forces me to stare at it constantly, taking my eyes off the road when I drive one
- sokoloff 10y ago
  On the flipside of that, my LEAF has a big button in the middle called "Auto". Hit that, and it's usually what I want (or damn close enough) if I'm at a time when I can't glance at them. Front defog is the only thing that I might need to look at in any kind of a time-sensitive fashion. In my experience, setting defog on any other car is harder than mashing the two buttons the are on in that area (defog and rear defog). I agree that if I want to manually set AC compressor on/off, fan speed 0-7, face, face/feet, feet, feet/windshield, windshield-only, that it's harder on the LEAF. Most times, I don't want that. I want either "defog" or "I'm a little uncomfortable; please make me more comfortable".
- amluto 10y ago
  Tesla also has a monostable shifter. I've found myself in a different state than I thought I was in on more than one occasion. It's remarkably easy to bump it and trigger a shift out of park.
xlayn 10y ago
Bad UI can happen to everyone and for a lot of reasons: I think the minimalism thing can get to stupid levels, the music controls on the ipad mini has the controls so cramped that I get a friend to prove than less than 50 percent of the time I can move the sound without pressing the rewind arrow.
neosat 10y ago
Some comments here completely miss the key point of the article and instead go down the route of whether the shifter itself should change or not. The blunder (and yes, it is a blunder and not only in hindsight) in the shifter is that it provides poor feedback to the human. While changing technology may render some types of control not necessary, and thus correctly invite new design thinking, the fundamental human need for feedback does not change. In fact, when something that is so habitual to you changes, that is precisely when the design should provide even more feedback because otherwise you are likely to miss it. This is amplified if the consequences of not comprehending ones actions are high - which clearly was the case here. The designers here dropped the ball. There is no way early feedback through rigorous testing on prototypes would have not identified this issue way before it went into production.
- et-al 10y ago
  Following up on feedback for the user, for automobiles designers should opt to communicate feedback in non-visual ways. You know which gear your car is by the position of the shift lever. You know when to shift up/down by the sound of an engine. You know what speed the AC fan is at by the direction of the dial and can crank it up and down accordingly. On an older car, a driver can be blindfolded and operate many of the accessory functions without trouble. On a newer car, I wager it's much difficult, especially those with touchscreen interfaces. Yes, there are more functions now, but should they be added at the expense of our safety? I want to be able to switch on the defogger by a simple button, not by diving into a menu.
- bambax 10y ago
  > Some comments here completely miss the key point of the article and instead go down the route of whether the shifter itself should change or not. Well, the point of the article is "bad design can be dangerous", but there is another point that can be discussed which is: why change what works? Regarding the shifter, the traditional shifter is physically connected to the gear box; in newer cars where everything happens via software, the physical connection no longer exists, and so designers thought there was an opportunity to redo it. But, just because you can doesn't mean you should. That said, your point about necessary feedback is extremely valid; it is believed that the crash of the Air France flight 447 in 2009 is due in no small part to insufficient feedback (either pilot could take back control of the plane, without the other pilot knowing they didn't have control anymore).
CoconutPilot 10y ago
Another horrible shifter is Toyota's. Take a look here: http://imgur.com/a/9ShAC http://imgur.com/a/9ShAC First gear is all the way down and to the right. Then left for 2nd, up and left for 3rd, up for 4th, right (!!!) for 5th (aka drive). Now it gets dangerous, if you go up and right you get reverse. Is there a method to this madness?
- shawkinaw 10y ago
  It might look crazy, but I've never had a problem using it, without looking. Certainly much, much better than the ridiculous Jeep shifter. Re: the gear order, since it's an automatic you spend 99% of your time going between park, reverse, and drive, so the only one you regularly go through is neutral. It's very rare to need, say, first gear. Edit: Oh, and I've never left it in drive thinking it was in park. Park = all the way up = hard to screw up.
- et-al 10y ago
  Visually, it may seem confusing, but tactilely, it's intuitive: Move your hand from the bottom-left corner to the top-right. That diagonal motion is shifting from D-N-R-P, what most people will use. Now pretend you're driving in the mountains and you're on a long descent. Instead of riding your brakes, you want to use the transmission to limit your speed. You're in 4th gear (D), so just bump your lever down to third (3). It's a simple vertical motion. Now you're in 3rd gear, but forgot and think you're still in 4th (D), and attempt to downshift once more. Fortunately, you won't accidentally drop the car into second gear. To get into second gear, you need a downward and horizontal motion. It requires intention to move from 3rd to 2nd gear. And once you're in the rarely used 2nd gear, to switch between second (2) and first (L) is a horizontal motion. So it makes sense once a person feels it out and actually drives their car. Designers with a background limited to just visual aesthetics need to learn this. Run through your interfaces; interact with them under less-than-ideal conditions. **tl;dr** P-R-N-D: diagonal motion D-3: vertical motion 2-L: horizontal motion
  - CoconutPilot 10y ago
    You've somewhat proven how poor this shifter design is because you didn't realize it is for a 5 speed transmission!
catpolice 10y ago
Speaking of bad design, on mobile the text on that page slightly flows off the right edge in a way that interferes with reading and can't be fixed by zooming.
ensiferum 10y ago
If this was open source software the answers would be "Don't use if it you don't like it" or "It's open, why don't you fix it yourself?"
cel1ne 10y ago
Must-read in this category: "The design of everyday things" by Don Norman.
joebergeron 10y ago
Wow. I think what baffled me the most is this: http://i.imgur.com/AUW0C1P.jpg http://i.imgur.com/AUW0C1P.jpg It just doesn't make sense for -so many- reasons. Besides the obvious that the cleaner literally looks identical to a neon-colored children's drink, why would anyone possibly decide to put them on the same aisle? The cleaner even has similar pricing to the beverages. Some stupidity I can understand, but this? How does this possibly get past anyone in the chain of command? Feel like this requires a dedicated, concerted effort in avoiding any thought whatsoever to occur.

100 points by ivank 10y ago

AMWJ 10y ago

I find it fascinating how many chat applications exist, and how success is almost completely due to design. Most chat features you find in newer chat apps, like Kik or Whatsapp existed since AIM. Yet users are very willing to jump ship and grab onto an application with the same, perhaps fewer, feature if it's more eye-catching, or intuitive. It's a nice reminder that part of innovation in the tech industry is UI, and if you innovate a new interface for an existing service, it can be as ground-breaking as any other innovation in the industry.

digi_owl 10y ago
No, i think the jump was technical. AIM and similar gen IM protocols expected that you were using a desktop or laptop with a persistent connection. This would break on iPhone because Apple didn't allow backgrounding. Kik and similar took over once Apple introduced their push notification service. This allowed apps to behave closer to text messaging.

AMWJ 10y ago

WalterBright 10y ago

The design of pilot controls in aircraft has a great deal of effort going into making them intuitive, and still serious mistakes are made. It's a very hard problem, and what's obvious in hindsight escapes nearly everyone in foresight.

cordite 10y ago

This seems to be something the medical industry hits every month with medications and materials. The human is prone to an incorrect interpretation of the specifics and may take action or not take action improperly because of that. How to identify similarly spelled medications as different? Is the dosage or dilution magnitudes apart without visibly distinct and obvious clues? More information about how the medical world handles these kinds of issues is at the Institution of Safe Medical Practices [1]. [1]: http://www.ismp.org/Newsletters/default.asp http://www.ismp.org/Newsletters/default.asp

jrowley 10y ago
I heard recently of a patient that took some prescribed medication before her surgery, but instead of taking 5 mg as prescribed she ended up taking 5 grams, which induced a near fatal stroke. You could argue that better design could have prevented this from happening. Edit: The mistake was between mg and ml, so the person drank 5ml of a 5X concentration drug. Either way a terrible, preventable result.
- dmoy 10y ago
  mg ml vs mg g is roughly comparable for many liquid, so still roughly the same.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Missing the point. The doses by mass are specified in terms of (main) active substance, not the whole solution.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  There was a famous airline accident where gallons of fuel was confused with liters. The fix (obvious in hindsight) was to standardize on gallons.
  - sitharus 10y ago
    You're thinking of the Gimli Glider, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider Boeing had just transitioned their FQIS from lbs to kgs (aircraft fuel is always weighed, volume changes with temperature). The flight crew hadn't had enough familiarisation and miscalculated. All aircraft now calculate fuel usage in SI units.

rdtsc 10y ago

http://jalopnik.com/heres-the-problem-with-jeeps-recalled-gear-shifter-1782364420 http://jalopnik.com/heres-the-problem-with-jeeps-recalled-ge... That monostable shifter is just an incredible bad idea. It is baffling why they do it that way. Was shifting a huge problem which needed to be solved in automotive industry? Guessing someone wanted a promotion by claiming "I redesigned the shifter". I understand when GMail kept changing its interface every 6 months -- it would correspond probably with year / mid-year reviews and ever designer probably wanted to say "I redesigned blah blah". That is just email. But this is a car and it can easily kill people. Why couldn't they just instead add more lights to the dashboard, or rear view cameras or something of that sort.

digi_owl 10y ago
Haven't tried one, but i find myself thinking of the pedal shifter on a motorcycle.
latortuga 10y ago
Astoundingly, in the video in the linked article, the person doing the demo incorrectly reports the gear he shifted into - he reports shifting into neutral when he really was in Reverse! There is also just one chime when opening the door which could just as easily be "you don't have your seatbelt on". Just amazingly bad.
- WWLink 10y ago
  I have a 300 with that shifter. If you open the door with the car not in gear it will bong bong bong bong bong bong bong at you. But it'll also do that if you open the door with the engine running. I always found it amusing too. For a car, the cars that have that ZF shifter are really heavy cars. The other amusing thing is HOW MUCH WORK they put into that shifter. It's doesn't just bounce back to its home position. It's also got some kind of ratcheting mechanism in it, so that when you shift from park to drive you can "feel" the shifter clicking from park to reverse to neutral to drive. That mechanism has lots of clickety parts in it that will probably fail with time. Why the heck did they do that?! Of all the things you could do with an electronic shifter this seems like the worst thing you could possibly do. They could have used a dial like they do now ,or even buttons. Anything. Why try so hard to replicate something - and take up so much space internally, when they could have just used the real deal? The gated shifter that they used on the 5 speeds was a better shifter anyway.

post_break 10y ago

There is an antifreeze sold in a green pop top can that looks similar to beer. I wish I could find the photo of it.

phpnode 10y ago
Looks refreshing! http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/2/c/vintage-markline-500-gas-line-anti-freeze-can-12-ounces-61d86f78538eb364fecc4efd6245af3f.jpg http://d2ydh70d4b5xgv.cloudfront.net/images/2/c/vintage-mark...
homero 10y ago
https://i.redd.it/igpx1sl1ex9x.jpg https://i.redd.it/igpx1sl1ex9x.jpg
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Is it legal to sell that in the U.S.? It wouldn't be allowed on the shelf in Australia.

pxlpshr 10y ago

I have that shifter on my Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's been recalled but I actually love it. Maybe I'm an outlier but it's not that dissimilar from electronic shifters in BMWs and Mercedes. My girlfriend's Mercedes acts like a turn signal on the steering column and it's 10x more confusing to operate. I hate it. The primary safety difference is that it auto-parks itself when the door is opened. Chrysler's recall adds the same self-parking functionality. I don't agree that shifters should work the way they've always worked. They warrant a redesign because long throwing shifters eat up a bunch of precious center console space. An area where stuff is often over-packed by the driver or co-pilot; phones, cups, coins, paperwork, keys, wallet. Most of this demands short-term, easy access storage. If better safety mechanisms were considered in the Chrysler, I doubt we'd be talking about this shifter as a failure. Nobody is criticizing Mercedes' exceptionally poor design – unless you read car enthusiast forums – because they added better safety processes.

astrocat 10y ago
I know the BMW shifters you're talking about, but there is one significant difference: the mechanism for entering Park is not like the rest of the gear selection options (Drive, Neutral, Reverse). It's a button on the top of the shifter. As such, when you want to put the car in park, you push a button, you don't move the shifter. I'm not saying this is a great shifter design overall, but it DOES mean that you quickly learn a completely different routine for putting the car in park. Basically: "If I want the car to be moving, then move the shifter. If I want the car to stop moving, push the button."
- kpil 10y ago
  It's like that on Mitsubishi Outlander Phev. There is a separate Park button, and I think there is no risk of confusion. I have actually occasionally powered down the car when I just wanted to put it in park, but there is no real danger in that. It automatically engages "Park" when powering down, but not when exiting the car, but maybe it should as long as the car is not moving when the door is opened. Actually, as the car is aware of that no one is sitting in the drivers seat, it would be trivial for Mitsubishi to program it to prevent the car from moving, or at least starting to move from a stand still using the ordinary brakes. I guess that would be true for all cars with airbags, which would be every car sold, at least in in USA and EU. Maybe it should be mandatory.

Artoemius 10y ago

Every time I see an issue like this, I think of this Steve Jobs quote: "Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you." (That is, you can count on some things having been made by idiots.)

digi_owl 10y ago
Idiots? nah. More that one develop mental myopia if one wander the same proverbial halls all day. One start to expect things others may not, or overlook details. Its how the mind can operate with such apparent efficiency. After all its primary concern is danger, procreation and food in that order. And danger is in nature most often something that is not present every day, and thus stands out like the proverbial sore thumb once it shows up.
danso 10y ago
Not just idiots, but sometimes committees of idiots. And often, committees of smart folks who unintentionally create idiotic things.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Also consider that more often than not, making something useful is not a business goal.
- pluma 10y ago
  "None of us is as dumb as all of us"

csours 10y ago

Does anyone know how NASA modified presentations after the report mentioned in the article? Only show one single piece of data per safety slide? Mandate large fonts and color coding on safety slides?

unexistance 10y ago
not exactly slide-related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11719953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11719953
- csours 10y ago
  Excellent reference, thanks.

ccvannorman 10y ago

This angers me as a consumer of automobiles. I abhor poor automobile design and this takes the cake. This is also why I hate a) air conditioning and radio controls that do not have clear positions for their status, forcing me, the person driving a big automobile in traffic, to divert my gaze to inspect them to ensure I have the correct setting b) Tesla's monolith faceless screen which forces me to stare at it constantly, taking my eyes off the road when I drive one

sokoloff 10y ago
On the flipside of that, my LEAF has a big button in the middle called "Auto". Hit that, and it's usually what I want (or damn close enough) if I'm at a time when I can't glance at them. Front defog is the only thing that I might need to look at in any kind of a time-sensitive fashion. In my experience, setting defog on any other car is harder than mashing the two buttons the are on in that area (defog and rear defog). I agree that if I want to manually set AC compressor on/off, fan speed 0-7, face, face/feet, feet, feet/windshield, windshield-only, that it's harder on the LEAF. Most times, I don't want that. I want either "defog" or "I'm a little uncomfortable; please make me more comfortable".
amluto 10y ago
Tesla also has a monostable shifter. I've found myself in a different state than I thought I was in on more than one occasion. It's remarkably easy to bump it and trigger a shift out of park.

xlayn 10y ago

Bad UI can happen to everyone and for a lot of reasons: I think the minimalism thing can get to stupid levels, the music controls on the ipad mini has the controls so cramped that I get a friend to prove than less than 50 percent of the time I can move the sound without pressing the rewind arrow.

neosat 10y ago

Some comments here completely miss the key point of the article and instead go down the route of whether the shifter itself should change or not. The blunder (and yes, it is a blunder and not only in hindsight) in the shifter is that it provides poor feedback to the human. While changing technology may render some types of control not necessary, and thus correctly invite new design thinking, the fundamental human need for feedback does not change. In fact, when something that is so habitual to you changes, that is precisely when the design should provide even more feedback because otherwise you are likely to miss it. This is amplified if the consequences of not comprehending ones actions are high - which clearly was the case here. The designers here dropped the ball. There is no way early feedback through rigorous testing on prototypes would have not identified this issue way before it went into production.

et-al 10y ago
Following up on feedback for the user, for automobiles designers should opt to communicate feedback in non-visual ways. You know which gear your car is by the position of the shift lever. You know when to shift up/down by the sound of an engine. You know what speed the AC fan is at by the direction of the dial and can crank it up and down accordingly. On an older car, a driver can be blindfolded and operate many of the accessory functions without trouble. On a newer car, I wager it's much difficult, especially those with touchscreen interfaces. Yes, there are more functions now, but should they be added at the expense of our safety? I want to be able to switch on the defogger by a simple button, not by diving into a menu.
bambax 10y ago
> Some comments here completely miss the key point of the article and instead go down the route of whether the shifter itself should change or not. Well, the point of the article is "bad design can be dangerous", but there is another point that can be discussed which is: why change what works? Regarding the shifter, the traditional shifter is physically connected to the gear box; in newer cars where everything happens via software, the physical connection no longer exists, and so designers thought there was an opportunity to redo it. But, just because you can doesn't mean you should. That said, your point about necessary feedback is extremely valid; it is believed that the crash of the Air France flight 447 in 2009 is due in no small part to insufficient feedback (either pilot could take back control of the plane, without the other pilot knowing they didn't have control anymore).

CoconutPilot 10y ago

Another horrible shifter is Toyota's. Take a look here: http://imgur.com/a/9ShAC http://imgur.com/a/9ShAC First gear is all the way down and to the right. Then left for 2nd, up and left for 3rd, up for 4th, right (!!!) for 5th (aka drive). Now it gets dangerous, if you go up and right you get reverse. Is there a method to this madness?

shawkinaw 10y ago
It might look crazy, but I've never had a problem using it, without looking. Certainly much, much better than the ridiculous Jeep shifter. Re: the gear order, since it's an automatic you spend 99% of your time going between park, reverse, and drive, so the only one you regularly go through is neutral. It's very rare to need, say, first gear. Edit: Oh, and I've never left it in drive thinking it was in park. Park = all the way up = hard to screw up.
et-al 10y ago
Visually, it may seem confusing, but tactilely, it's intuitive: Move your hand from the bottom-left corner to the top-right. That diagonal motion is shifting from D-N-R-P, what most people will use. Now pretend you're driving in the mountains and you're on a long descent. Instead of riding your brakes, you want to use the transmission to limit your speed. You're in 4th gear (D), so just bump your lever down to third (3). It's a simple vertical motion. Now you're in 3rd gear, but forgot and think you're still in 4th (D), and attempt to downshift once more. Fortunately, you won't accidentally drop the car into second gear. To get into second gear, you need a downward and horizontal motion. It requires intention to move from 3rd to 2nd gear. And once you're in the rarely used 2nd gear, to switch between second (2) and first (L) is a horizontal motion. So it makes sense once a person feels it out and actually drives their car. Designers with a background limited to just visual aesthetics need to learn this. Run through your interfaces; interact with them under less-than-ideal conditions. **tl;dr** P-R-N-D: diagonal motion D-3: vertical motion 2-L: horizontal motion
- CoconutPilot 10y ago
  You've somewhat proven how poor this shifter design is because you didn't realize it is for a 5 speed transmission!

catpolice 10y ago

Speaking of bad design, on mobile the text on that page slightly flows off the right edge in a way that interferes with reading and can't be fixed by zooming.

ensiferum 10y ago

If this was open source software the answers would be "Don't use if it you don't like it" or "It's open, why don't you fix it yourself?"

cel1ne 10y ago

Must-read in this category: "The design of everyday things" by Don Norman.

joebergeron 10y ago

Wow. I think what baffled me the most is this: http://i.imgur.com/AUW0C1P.jpg http://i.imgur.com/AUW0C1P.jpg It just doesn't make sense for -so many- reasons. Besides the obvious that the cleaner literally looks identical to a neon-colored children's drink, why would anyone possibly decide to put them on the same aisle? The cleaner even has similar pricing to the beverages. Some stupidity I can understand, but this? How does this possibly get past anyone in the chain of command? Feel like this requires a dedicated, concerted effort in avoiding any thought whatsoever to occur.