7 ms·

We need to condemn any design that puts aesthetics, minimalism, "look" or "coolness" in front of pragmatism, safety, functionality, practicality, usability and

• drstewart 6y ago
  I'd love to see what your clothes look like. I assume either none of your clothes has any adaptations for fashion over function OR you're gullible and moronic?
  • harimau777 6y ago
    The issue isn't when you have form and function. The issue is when you have form over function.
  • csours 6y ago
    Please use strong arguments, not ad hominem. > I'd love to see what your clothes look like. I assume either none of your clothes has any adaptations for fashion over function OR you're gullible and moronic? There's a reason why we don't wear ties in manufacturing plants.
    • drstewart 6y ago
      >Please use strong arguments, not ad hominem. You mean like calling people gullible and moronic? >There's a reason why we don't wear ties in manufacturing plants. There's a reason why we don't call everyone who wears ties gullible and moronic. There's a reason we don't condemn ties.
      • foolserrand 6y ago
        We don't condemn ties in all situations. They work in some (office) and not others (factories). TFA quite specifically does not condemn yokes in all situations. They work in some (racing) and not others (everyday drivers). Not sure which of gullible and/or moronic applies to you, but at least one does.
  • systemvoltage 6y ago
    I wear Khadi in the name of civil disobedience against fashion :) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2156064/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2156064/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khadi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khadi
    • drstewart 6y ago
      I condemn khadi for being gullible and moronic.
  • hungryhobo 6y ago
    i can't kill someone if i choose fashion over function for my clothes.
• temp667 6y ago
  We need to condemn the condemners. The don't / can't doers. Here is an F1 racing wheel - used in some of the highest (not lowest) performance driving. https://www.popsci.com/f1-racing-steering-wheel-complicated/ https://www.popsci.com/f1-racing-steering-wheel-complicated/ Airbus moved away from yolks on their planes as part of a move towards greater automation, with great success. Same arguments were made there BTW. The market for utilitarian design is high. Tesla's for example have some of the LOWEST injury rates per mile driven. The whole package (which is how this all should be judged) is safer than many cars driving on the roads today. A design that for example allows someone to drive faster than 10MPH (which clearly reduces safety) should be condemned? I condemn this type of absolutely ridiculous over the top language use and this ridiculous absolutism.
  • Hamuko 6y ago
    >Here is an F1 racing wheel - used in some of the highest (not lowest) performance driving. It's worth remembering that an F1 racing car is not road legal and are not driven in traffic. I've personally never seen someone pull out of a parking space in an F1 single-seater.
    • coldtea 6y ago
      >It's worth remembering that an F1 racing car is not road legal and are not driven in traffic. It's also worth remembering that, unlike Tesla, the author of the article never did any real usability tests for the steering yoke design...
  • tomatotomato37 6y ago
    Did you read the article? F1 racers only use that design of steering wheel because they have ultra tight steering ratios that allow you to lock the wheels in a direction without multiple turns of the wheel; whereas anything used by civilians will have a much less twitchy ratio that needs an actual wheel. Note this is also why big rigs usually have an additinal rotating handle attached to their wheels, since their ratios are very loose due to their weight and thus may need to turn their wheel 10+ times.
• TrainedMonkey 6y ago
  People thought Cybertruck looked ridiculous and Tesla went off the rails with the design... and then pre-orders went off the rails. Most things Tesla does are extremely polarizing and to no ones surprise yoke steering wheel is no exception. Most ridiculous part of the situation is that we have 0 information on how that thing works. All we have to go off are looks. Some people love them and others make a bunch of assumptions so they can criticize it. Given Tesla's track record I will remain cautiously optimistic, but in absolute worst case scenario we are putting racing steering wheels on highest end sport cars... sounds absolutely dreadful doesn't it? edit: typoed.
  • Hamuko 6y ago
    We still don't actually know what the Cybertruck will actually look like when it goes on sale. The concept design that they showed to the public wouldn't have been road legal pretty much anywhere. Some are also saying that the structure would also be too rigid to be legal in Europe.
    • TrainedMonkey 6y ago
      Concur on not knowing final design, I was trying to convey that the design presented was extremely polarizing. I am mostly concerned on lack of crumple zones for the vehicle. Given it's planned weight and performance collisions will be deadly for other vehicles.
• oceanplexian 6y ago
  What if I, the consumer, don't really care about pragmatism? It's legal for me to purchase a motorcycle which has no seatbelts or crash protection whatsoever, but you want to make it illegal for me to buy a car with a novelty steering wheel? What's next – do we ban cars with too many horsepower because it's not 'pragmatic'?
  • HarryHirsch 6y ago
    Then you should do what everyone else with non-street-legal cars does: run them on the track with like-minded individuals, instead of putting every goddamn other road user at risk of death or injury. They don't choose to be near someone who can't do overhand tight turns because the geometry of the steering wheel doesn't permit it.
    • 1996 6y ago
      I won't. Likewise, I love driving with my knees, because I'm lazy and I like to eat while driving. Should I be arrested, even without having caused any accident ever? In your mind, I'm sure the answer is "yes", if you don't care about results, only about violations. The conservative stance I read all over the comments is quite concerning. Most modern nerds seem to be concerned first with order and safety - including shoving it down other people throats. That's quite far in one direction of the political spectrum! > They don't choose to be near someone who can't do overhand tight turns because the geometry of the steering wheel doesn't permit it. The obvious solution is to adopt the equivalent of fly-by-wire, instead of a linear response, so that 70 deg in one direction become equivalent to maximum steer. Bonus point: we'll be able to use joysticks or joypads so that our hands can rest, instead of holding a stupid wheel like we're back in the 1900s. I strongly believe we should discard old regulations ASAP, as they were due to the technological limits back when they were introduced, and regulations only pile up and kill innovation. Technology improved many things, let's adapt to it! You still have time to adapt instead of becoming a new kind of boomer.
      • HarryHirsch 6y ago
        Should I be arrested, even without having caused any accident ever? In your mind, I'm sure the answer is "yes", if you don't care about results, only about violations. Ah, the old paradox of prevention. We don't need no stinking sea dykes, last storm tide we had was in 1962.
• einarfd 6y ago
  I've got one of the Tesla Model 3 cars, which is afaik. the model which Tesla has gone farthest with the touch screen, and before I had that I drove a lot of different cars. After driving Model 3 for a couple of years, I have to say that the touch screen is not a usability problem. The controls I need to have quick access to are not on the touch screen, and the ones that are on that screen, are controls I would have to take my eyes of the road and look for anyway. I will have to grant that they have gone a bit overboard with putting controls in the touch interface, and I still don't get why the glove box opening button is in the touch UI, but that isn't a problem by any means. I was a bit skeptical of the Model 3 UI, before I got it. But for me it is clearly a step up in usability from the "a million little buttons with weird symbols that who knows does what", and while that view of traditional car interfaces might be a bit unfair. So is all the "any touch screen UI in a car is bad", sentiment going around. Touch interfaces can work well in a car, as long as you don't need to use it for the drive task, but only for auxiliary tasks that don't need, and shouldn't be split seconds tasks.
  • m463 6y ago
    How do you flash your lights at someone? (not hit them with the high beams) How do you turn on defog if the windshield becomes obscured? these are the kinds of things I think about. The model S is a little better but it isn't perfect either, it has the same problem: defog and changing the temperature on climate control has to be done carefully by looking over and down. Now it will get more of these issues heaped on like turn signals windshield wipers and more.
    • mdeeks 6y ago
      To be fair, I have to look over and down to do the same on my 2018 Audi A4 even though it has (far too many) buttons and dials to control that. My main complaint on our Model 3 is the windshield wiper control. The Auto setting is terrible at actually detecting rain so I can't use it. The manual adjustments require multiple taps and it hides itself again after a few seconds.
    • surfearth 6y ago
      If you're flashing your lights as someone, why wouldn't you use the high beam? In particular, with daytime running lights on most cars, high beam flashing is the most practical tool for the job. On my Model Y, it is a simple pull of the left steering wheel stalk to do that, the same on all other cars I've previously owned. On my prior car, flashing the non-bright lights would've required turning an awkwardly positioned dial that also controls fog lights and running lights. That is easier than the touchscreen method but still poor UX while driving.
• karmakaze 6y ago
  I don't know that F1 designs their steering putting "aesthetics, minimalism, "look" or "coolness" in front of ..."
• dingaling 6y ago
  You state two opposing viewpoints. One: the customers want this Two: the customers are conditioned into buying this by coercive marketing I don't believe that Tesla customers asked for this change, so I'd tend more towards the second viewpoint. It's much like the smartphone market: we're constantly told that the market doesn't want small or thick phones, but the market isn't given the choice.
• curryst 6y ago
  > This whole problem is actually to do with what the public wants. Designers are delivering exactly what they want. And customers are ruined by conditioning from marketing that "touchscreens are better! who wants those stupid buttons and dials", bean counters are getting their bonuses because they just replaced expensive buttons/dials (with automotive reliability ratings) with a $13 touchscreen a bunch of software to control stuff. So, we're never going to get out of this. The problem is that it's one of those things where it's best to be a thief among honest people. People want to drive cool cars, regardless of safety. However, they do not want other people driving unsafe things to crash into them. So we end up in this weird situation where consumers are demanding the exact same things they want safety boards to ban. Some people want these new Knight Rider steering wheels, but they don't want people using drag tires on the road. The people that want to use drag tires on the road don't want people to have the Knight Rider steering wheels. So we end up with demand for both, and safety commissions trying to ban both.