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It's an incredibly, self-evidently stupid article. It's the accusations of one fired employee immediately disproved by Tesla who supplied photographic evidence.

It's an incredibly, self-evidently stupid article. It's the accusations of one fired employee immediately disproved by Tesla who supplied photographic evidence. > Musk, apparently, really hates the color yellow. So instead of using the aforementioned hue, lane lines on the factory floor are painted in shades of gray. (Tesla denies this and sent Reveal photos of “rails and posts” painted yellow in the factory.) While I don't know anything about this non-controversy, my suspicion is that their limited use of colour is based on sound UX principles. Car factories have nothing but dangerous equipment from one end of the room to another; placing lawyer-approved caution markings on everything ends up backfiring as workers start to tune it all out. So what was the point? At the end of the day safety is all about good training, not how much yellow paint you apply to stuff.

MengerSponge 6y ago
Yeah, I guess it's reasonable to expect sound UI/UX decisions from a company that sells touchscreen-controlled car interfaces which have been clearly demonstrated to be safer. That sentence was a lie. Touchscreens are less safe (read: more distracting, impose a higher cognitive load, lead drivers to veer while operating them) than tactile buttons. Touchscreens are excellent at reducing BOM costs, and they're excellent for glossy marketing pitches. Unsurprisingly, Tesla is big on touchscreens. Finally, photos of "rails and posts" painted yellow doesn't contradict the fundamental assertions in the article that the color scheme of the factory floor is dominated by Elon's aesthetic sense. And it's not like Tesla has a strong record on safety in general: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-safety-violations-dwarf-big-us-auto-plants-in-aftermath-of-musks-model-3-push/#1641492154ce https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-sa...
- sjwright 6y ago
  Your response is a non sequitur. Also I don't understand what your point was. I don't disagree with anything you wrote in that post, nor does anything I wrote previously imply disagreement with any of that—which I suppose is unsurprising given that it was a non sequitur. For the sake of completeness, let me enumerate all our agreements: 1. Touch screens are bad interfaces for a car in motion. 2. Removing physical buttons saves money and is great marketing. 3. There was an aesthetic aspect to the choice of factory floor colours. 4. Tesla factories have a poor historical safety record. Anything else? None of that detracts from the fact your original post was monumentally stupid and (despite your pre-emptive assertion) an entirely ad homenim making conclusions about Elon's motivations and Tesla's decision-making processes based on nothing more than one link to a tabloid-quality sensationalist report. We don't even know who actually designed the factory floor colour schemes—and I doubt some rando fired line worker knows either. I suppose we just have to assume that Elon is soly responsible for bike-shedding every single nuance at a 40,000+ employee company.
  - MengerSponge 6y ago
    I'm not a psychic, but reasoning came from a direct quote from one of his underlings. And yes, I linked a tabloid because tabloids are more fun, and that's about the level of seriousness we should cover him with. If you want something more reputable, here's Reveal's investigation: https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is... It's based on current and previous employees (at least at the time of writing), so you can put your concern that the source was a "rando fired line worker" to bed. :) The quip about N95's having yellow bands was silly, but the problem is deep. N95 respirators are uncomfortable, hard to wear, and easy to mess up, and Tesla's well-documented (see, above) history of worker safety suggests they don't have the kind of safety culture required to actually keep their workers safe. The tragic thing is it isn't actually hard, in the quantum physics/rocket science sense of the word. It's just a bunch of small steps that you can't mess up!
    - sjwright 6y ago
      > I linked a tabloid because tabloids are more fun Q.E.D.

MengerSponge 6y ago

Yeah, I guess it's reasonable to expect sound UI/UX decisions from a company that sells touchscreen-controlled car interfaces which have been clearly demonstrated to be safer. That sentence was a lie. Touchscreens are less safe (read: more distracting, impose a higher cognitive load, lead drivers to veer while operating them) than tactile buttons. Touchscreens are excellent at reducing BOM costs, and they're excellent for glossy marketing pitches. Unsurprisingly, Tesla is big on touchscreens. Finally, photos of "rails and posts" painted yellow doesn't contradict the fundamental assertions in the article that the color scheme of the factory floor is dominated by Elon's aesthetic sense. And it's not like Tesla has a strong record on safety in general: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-safety-violations-dwarf-big-us-auto-plants-in-aftermath-of-musks-model-3-push/#1641492154ce https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/03/01/tesla-sa...

sjwright 6y ago
Your response is a non sequitur. Also I don't understand what your point was. I don't disagree with anything you wrote in that post, nor does anything I wrote previously imply disagreement with any of that—which I suppose is unsurprising given that it was a non sequitur. For the sake of completeness, let me enumerate all our agreements: 1. Touch screens are bad interfaces for a car in motion. 2. Removing physical buttons saves money and is great marketing. 3. There was an aesthetic aspect to the choice of factory floor colours. 4. Tesla factories have a poor historical safety record. Anything else? None of that detracts from the fact your original post was monumentally stupid and (despite your pre-emptive assertion) an entirely ad homenim making conclusions about Elon's motivations and Tesla's decision-making processes based on nothing more than one link to a tabloid-quality sensationalist report. We don't even know who actually designed the factory floor colour schemes—and I doubt some rando fired line worker knows either. I suppose we just have to assume that Elon is soly responsible for bike-shedding every single nuance at a 40,000+ employee company.
- MengerSponge 6y ago
  I'm not a psychic, but reasoning came from a direct quote from one of his underlings. And yes, I linked a tabloid because tabloids are more fun, and that's about the level of seriousness we should cover him with. If you want something more reputable, here's Reveal's investigation: https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is... It's based on current and previous employees (at least at the time of writing), so you can put your concern that the source was a "rando fired line worker" to bed. :) The quip about N95's having yellow bands was silly, but the problem is deep. N95 respirators are uncomfortable, hard to wear, and easy to mess up, and Tesla's well-documented (see, above) history of worker safety suggests they don't have the kind of safety culture required to actually keep their workers safe. The tragic thing is it isn't actually hard, in the quantum physics/rocket science sense of the word. It's just a bunch of small steps that you can't mess up!
  - sjwright 6y ago
    > I linked a tabloid because tabloids are more fun Q.E.D.