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I'm not sure how much the UI is indeed at play here, rather than the User's state. The keyword here is 'rental'. This seems to just amplify grumpiness. Picking

I'm not sure how much the UI is indeed at play here, rather than the User's state. The keyword here is 'rental'. This seems to just amplify grumpiness. Picking a rented car, I normally don't spend much effort trying to figure out all features. Just basics - adjust the seat, the mirrors, reset the trip, rarely link up the phone. Touch-n-go. It always gets irritating later, as I would try to figure some needed feature while already on the go. Climate, radio, what's that beeping, which side is the fuel port (while already pulling to the pump), the curiously long-lasting parfum on the seat-belt from the previous renter at times triggering unexpected memories... I guess, it's just a mild form of self-inflicted road rage. RTFM would be an easy answer, but we all know how that works out.

jacobolus 7y ago
> which side is the fuel port Note that most cars have a little arrow on the dashboard next to the fuel gauge showing which side the fuel tank is on.
- ygra 7y ago
  Not most cars I've seen so far, but most filling stations also have hoses long enough to reach around the car, so unless you drive a battleship or a tank, it doesn't really matter.
  - kurtisc 7y ago
    There's a station near me that just opened. Pay at pump, pumps only on one side. 'Surely' I thought, as I pulled up, 'the hoses will reach the other side'. They didn't. So I got out to move my hatchback car closer and angled so they would reach. I unhooked the pump and put it in my car. But first it asked me to pay my bill of £0.
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    > Not most cars I've seen so far Do you have an example? Every rental car I have tried in the past decade had this. At least 10–15 different models from a variety of different manufacturers.
  - vsl 7y ago
    You just didn’t see the indicator (it’s an icon somewhere on the fuel gauge, typically in its center). I was driving for ten years unaware of this, before somebody told me. It’s easy to miss that the icon telling you “this is fuel gauge” also shows you which side to fill the tank from.
RayVR 7y ago
You're really ignoring the main point that the tech in these machines makes them more difficult to use and less intuitive. I'm wondering how many cars you drove that did not have any screens. Having grown up during a time when the most sophisticated display was the LCD for the radio station, I can assure you car interfaces are getting worse. Japanese cars used to be my favorite because they had consistent manual interfaces across models. Perhaps Renault and Peugeot have always had bad design but the digitization of the interfaces and the software that's now controlling some aspects of the actual driving makes them more dangerous.
- mojuba 7y ago
  And I wonder if the car manufacturers are even listening (to us). In some ways the current state of car interior design reminds the 1990s and 2000s of computers and mobile phones. Everything was so ugly and unusable that when proper industrial design finally came into the industry, the guy responsible for it got knighthood and worldwide recognition of a genius. (To be fair a few companies did try to make their devices look well-designed and luxury, such as Sony, but then Sony never understood software. Industrial design without software is nothing.) Whereas all it takes for any electronics or car manufacturer is to have someone C-level with a good taste to approve or disapprove designs. Which got me thinking, maybe at this point the humanity needs to come up with some measure of good taste similar to IQ...
  - pwagland 7y ago
    The real problem is… who are "us" in this sentence? For a fairly intuitive UI, check out the Tesla, particularly in its latest incarnations. In my estimation it is at least as usable as most tablets, and very discoverable. However, look online and you will discover a litany of people who decry the lack of physical buttons to control everything. Car UI is hard, not just because it is hard, but because there are many different groups of "us", and we have all grown used to different forms of car UI, BMW vs Ford for example.
    - mojuba 7y ago
      > litany of people who decry the lack of physical buttons to control everything So how about you as a car manufacturer make these people happy but with an even better design than they expected? Car usability is not subjective, it can easily be measured. For example, how often do drivers adjust the audio volume while driving? If they are doing it less often it means the volume function is less usable (the driver feels it would be unsafe to try and use the function). And so on.
FooHentai 7y ago
I spent an entire summer bumbling around the UK in a little rented Fiat 500, with the family all crammed in and complaining because we'd rented one that came without AC. At least, according to the rental company that was the case. On the last day as we were driving it back to drop off, I discovered that you could press the temperature dial inwards to turn on AC. There was a significant number of choice words from the folks in the back seat. But aside from that the rest of the drive was pleasantly cool.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Reminds me of trying to figure out how to make the power seats go down in a rental car at 3am. Seat was up so far my head was pressed against the headliner. To control the seat there were three switches under the seat on the left. That was easy enough to find though not obvious. But flipping each switch up and down and the seat would move some direction. Except up and down. Found one page in the back of the owners manual that showed 'one' of the switches in addition to up and down moved right and left.
draw_down 7y ago
... What?! The lane assist messed up and it’s the driver’s fault for being grumpy because it’s a rental. Yeah, okay.
Aloha 7y ago
I estimate that I've rented 15 different vehicles in the last 24 months, if I cant figure out how to use the infotainment system within five minutes of getting in the car its an instant fail. Similarly, if I cant figure out the wipers, cruise control within 30 seconds of wanting them, or if the car takes evasive action against my wishes, its also an instant fail. I also shouldn't need to look to anywhere but the gas gauge to figure out what side to fuel it, if I do, also a fail. We've been building cars for 100 years or more - you don't get to make a car that operates in a fundamentally different manner. If anyone was curious, the best infotainment system was FCA's uConnect, with the Ford and GM systems tying for second, the worst by far was the one on the Volvo I rented, it took me 10 min to figure out the radio, even longer to turn the AC on.
amatecha 7y ago
I drove these various rentals for tens of thousands of kilometers, not just short weekend trips :)
quanticle 7y ago
That reinforces the article's point. Having a car as a rental allows you to see its UI foibles without the blinders that inevitably come down when people are forced to adapt to some problem over a long period of time. And like the OP says, the UI of most modern cars is horrendously bad. For example, my personal car is a 2019 Subaru Legacy. I rather like it. But there's no way to make it start with the stereo off. If the car is on, the stereo is on. The only way to turn the audio off is to twist the volume knob all the way down to zero before you turn off the car. When I first had the car, I found this to be totally ridiculous. Whoever heard of a car that automatically turns on the radio when it starts? But, after having had the car for a month, the problem is already fading, as I've developed a habit of turning the volume down before I turn off the car. At this rate, six months from now, like you, I'll be defending this anti-feature. (Hey, you're going to turn the radio on anyway when you drive, so why not have the car do it for you on startup?) I agree that the key word is rental, but my conclusion is exactly the opposite of yours. The fact that this is an unfamiliar rental is what is allowing the OP to see the issues with the car's UX clearly. If the car were his daily driver, he'd have adapted to it, and he wouldn't notice himself getting distracted. [1]: https://www.subaruxvforum.com/forum/interior-audio-hvac/146089-turning-radio-off-so-will-stay-off.html https://www.subaruxvforum.com/forum/interior-audio-hvac/1460...
- zrobotics 7y ago
  I must say, I'm a little confused re the radio- hasn't that been the default UX for car audio for as long as cars have had radios? Even old AM only radios would come on when the ignition was turned on, and would retain the volume & station from the last time the car was used. I don't think I have ever driven a vehicle that defaulted the radio off when starting, they all retain the setting that was last used.
  - quanticle 7y ago
    If the radio was on, then it would come on the next time the car was started. If the radio was off, it would remain off until you turned it on. In the Subaru, the radio comes on regardless of its state when the car was shut off. In every other car I've owned, if I press the volume knob to turn off the radio, the radio stays off. The next time I start the car, I have to press the volume knob again to turn the radio back on. In the Subaru, the radio turns on and starts playing when I start the car, even if I specifically pressed the volume knob to turn it off before turning off the car last time. I encourage you to go try this in your (presumably non-Subaru) car. Start the car. Turn on the radio. Turn off the radio. Shut off the car. Start the car again. Is the radio playing audio or not?

jacobolus 7y ago

> which side is the fuel port Note that most cars have a little arrow on the dashboard next to the fuel gauge showing which side the fuel tank is on.

ygra 7y ago
Not most cars I've seen so far, but most filling stations also have hoses long enough to reach around the car, so unless you drive a battleship or a tank, it doesn't really matter.
- kurtisc 7y ago
  There's a station near me that just opened. Pay at pump, pumps only on one side. 'Surely' I thought, as I pulled up, 'the hoses will reach the other side'. They didn't. So I got out to move my hatchback car closer and angled so they would reach. I unhooked the pump and put it in my car. But first it asked me to pay my bill of £0.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  > Not most cars I've seen so far Do you have an example? Every rental car I have tried in the past decade had this. At least 10–15 different models from a variety of different manufacturers.
- vsl 7y ago
  You just didn’t see the indicator (it’s an icon somewhere on the fuel gauge, typically in its center). I was driving for ten years unaware of this, before somebody told me. It’s easy to miss that the icon telling you “this is fuel gauge” also shows you which side to fill the tank from.

RayVR 7y ago

You're really ignoring the main point that the tech in these machines makes them more difficult to use and less intuitive. I'm wondering how many cars you drove that did not have any screens. Having grown up during a time when the most sophisticated display was the LCD for the radio station, I can assure you car interfaces are getting worse. Japanese cars used to be my favorite because they had consistent manual interfaces across models. Perhaps Renault and Peugeot have always had bad design but the digitization of the interfaces and the software that's now controlling some aspects of the actual driving makes them more dangerous.

mojuba 7y ago
And I wonder if the car manufacturers are even listening (to us). In some ways the current state of car interior design reminds the 1990s and 2000s of computers and mobile phones. Everything was so ugly and unusable that when proper industrial design finally came into the industry, the guy responsible for it got knighthood and worldwide recognition of a genius. (To be fair a few companies did try to make their devices look well-designed and luxury, such as Sony, but then Sony never understood software. Industrial design without software is nothing.) Whereas all it takes for any electronics or car manufacturer is to have someone C-level with a good taste to approve or disapprove designs. Which got me thinking, maybe at this point the humanity needs to come up with some measure of good taste similar to IQ...
- pwagland 7y ago
  The real problem is… who are "us" in this sentence? For a fairly intuitive UI, check out the Tesla, particularly in its latest incarnations. In my estimation it is at least as usable as most tablets, and very discoverable. However, look online and you will discover a litany of people who decry the lack of physical buttons to control everything. Car UI is hard, not just because it is hard, but because there are many different groups of "us", and we have all grown used to different forms of car UI, BMW vs Ford for example.
  - mojuba 7y ago
    > litany of people who decry the lack of physical buttons to control everything So how about you as a car manufacturer make these people happy but with an even better design than they expected? Car usability is not subjective, it can easily be measured. For example, how often do drivers adjust the audio volume while driving? If they are doing it less often it means the volume function is less usable (the driver feels it would be unsafe to try and use the function). And so on.

FooHentai 7y ago

I spent an entire summer bumbling around the UK in a little rented Fiat 500, with the family all crammed in and complaining because we'd rented one that came without AC. At least, according to the rental company that was the case. On the last day as we were driving it back to drop off, I discovered that you could press the temperature dial inwards to turn on AC. There was a significant number of choice words from the folks in the back seat. But aside from that the rest of the drive was pleasantly cool.

Gibbon1 7y ago
Reminds me of trying to figure out how to make the power seats go down in a rental car at 3am. Seat was up so far my head was pressed against the headliner. To control the seat there were three switches under the seat on the left. That was easy enough to find though not obvious. But flipping each switch up and down and the seat would move some direction. Except up and down. Found one page in the back of the owners manual that showed 'one' of the switches in addition to up and down moved right and left.

draw_down 7y ago

... What?! The lane assist messed up and it’s the driver’s fault for being grumpy because it’s a rental. Yeah, okay.

Aloha 7y ago

I estimate that I've rented 15 different vehicles in the last 24 months, if I cant figure out how to use the infotainment system within five minutes of getting in the car its an instant fail. Similarly, if I cant figure out the wipers, cruise control within 30 seconds of wanting them, or if the car takes evasive action against my wishes, its also an instant fail. I also shouldn't need to look to anywhere but the gas gauge to figure out what side to fuel it, if I do, also a fail. We've been building cars for 100 years or more - you don't get to make a car that operates in a fundamentally different manner. If anyone was curious, the best infotainment system was FCA's uConnect, with the Ford and GM systems tying for second, the worst by far was the one on the Volvo I rented, it took me 10 min to figure out the radio, even longer to turn the AC on.

amatecha 7y ago

I drove these various rentals for tens of thousands of kilometers, not just short weekend trips :)

quanticle 7y ago

That reinforces the article's point. Having a car as a rental allows you to see its UI foibles without the blinders that inevitably come down when people are forced to adapt to some problem over a long period of time. And like the OP says, the UI of most modern cars is horrendously bad. For example, my personal car is a 2019 Subaru Legacy. I rather like it. But there's no way to make it start with the stereo off. If the car is on, the stereo is on. The only way to turn the audio off is to twist the volume knob all the way down to zero before you turn off the car. When I first had the car, I found this to be totally ridiculous. Whoever heard of a car that automatically turns on the radio when it starts? But, after having had the car for a month, the problem is already fading, as I've developed a habit of turning the volume down before I turn off the car. At this rate, six months from now, like you, I'll be defending this anti-feature. (Hey, you're going to turn the radio on anyway when you drive, so why not have the car do it for you on startup?) I agree that the key word is rental, but my conclusion is exactly the opposite of yours. The fact that this is an unfamiliar rental is what is allowing the OP to see the issues with the car's UX clearly. If the car were his daily driver, he'd have adapted to it, and he wouldn't notice himself getting distracted. [1]: https://www.subaruxvforum.com/forum/interior-audio-hvac/146089-turning-radio-off-so-will-stay-off.html https://www.subaruxvforum.com/forum/interior-audio-hvac/1460...

zrobotics 7y ago
I must say, I'm a little confused re the radio- hasn't that been the default UX for car audio for as long as cars have had radios? Even old AM only radios would come on when the ignition was turned on, and would retain the volume & station from the last time the car was used. I don't think I have ever driven a vehicle that defaulted the radio off when starting, they all retain the setting that was last used.
- quanticle 7y ago
  If the radio was on, then it would come on the next time the car was started. If the radio was off, it would remain off until you turned it on. In the Subaru, the radio comes on regardless of its state when the car was shut off. In every other car I've owned, if I press the volume knob to turn off the radio, the radio stays off. The next time I start the car, I have to press the volume knob again to turn the radio back on. In the Subaru, the radio turns on and starts playing when I start the car, even if I specifically pressed the volume knob to turn it off before turning off the car last time. I encourage you to go try this in your (presumably non-Subaru) car. Start the car. Turn on the radio. Turn off the radio. Shut off the car. Start the car again. Is the radio playing audio or not?