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Dogfighting/takeoff/landing is a lot closer to driving in traffic than it is to general flying. The point being that a complete awareness of your surroundings i

Dogfighting/takeoff/landing is a lot closer to driving in traffic than it is to general flying. The point being that a complete awareness of your surroundings is essential in all of these situations. Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a lot of training to manage properly under stress--which is when it is most important to do it right. This strengthens my point. If something as complex as a fighter jet can have its core functions displayed in an easy to use display in that keeps the pilot's "head up", then certainly we can do it for cars. HUD has been tried in cars before, but never caught on. Drivers tended to find it more distracting than helpful. That's because that "HUD" consisted of a an annoying little speedometer that was pretty much out of the line of sight. Today, we have much more information delivered to the driver in general - the most distracting being GPS/Map data and cell phone operation. These are perfect for HUD use. I'm talking about something like this: http://www.carpages.co.uk/bmw/bmw-7-series-part-1-19-11-08.asp http://www.carpages.co.uk/bmw/bmw-7-series-part-1-19-11-08.a...

ceejayoz 14y ago
> This strengthens my point. If something as complex as a fighter jet can have its core functions displayed in an easy to use display in that keeps the pilot's "head up", then certainly we can do it for cars. Not really. Fighter jets require extensive education and training to be able to fly at all, let alone competently. They can afford to teach the pilot "click the thumb button twice for this, three times for this other thing". Car manufacturers can't.
snowwrestler 14y ago
That graphic is hilarious. WTF do all those cryptic numbers and arrows mean?? Even if I knew, I would have to stare at them for a second or two to collect and parse the data. You might start by asking yourself why, in 2012, almost every car still comes with an analog (dial-style) speedometer. The answer is that they are unambiguous and easily scanned. You do not need to actually read the numbers, and can collect the speed data in a quick eye flick (well under 1 second). Again: everyone already tried digital speed readouts in the 1980s. They sucked. Engineering and innovation create continuous pressure on good user interfaces. The Google homepage is a well-known example from the web of a UI that successfully resisted this pressure to very good effect. (Although even the Google homepage is slowly succumbing.) Consider something like GPS. The greatest visual interface for GPS directions is none at all. The driver in need of directions should be able to ask for them verbally and receive instructions verbally--that way they can maintain their visual scan. In the age of paper maps, everyone knew it was silly to try to drive and unfold and read a map at the same time...somehow this common wisdom has been forgotten just because we can use pixels now.

ceejayoz 14y ago

> This strengthens my point. If something as complex as a fighter jet can have its core functions displayed in an easy to use display in that keeps the pilot's "head up", then certainly we can do it for cars. Not really. Fighter jets require extensive education and training to be able to fly at all, let alone competently. They can afford to teach the pilot "click the thumb button twice for this, three times for this other thing". Car manufacturers can't.

snowwrestler 14y ago

That graphic is hilarious. WTF do all those cryptic numbers and arrows mean?? Even if I knew, I would have to stare at them for a second or two to collect and parse the data. You might start by asking yourself why, in 2012, almost every car still comes with an analog (dial-style) speedometer. The answer is that they are unambiguous and easily scanned. You do not need to actually read the numbers, and can collect the speed data in a quick eye flick (well under 1 second). Again: everyone already tried digital speed readouts in the 1980s. They sucked. Engineering and innovation create continuous pressure on good user interfaces. The Google homepage is a well-known example from the web of a UI that successfully resisted this pressure to very good effect. (Although even the Google homepage is slowly succumbing.) Consider something like GPS. The greatest visual interface for GPS directions is none at all. The driver in need of directions should be able to ask for them verbally and receive instructions verbally--that way they can maintain their visual scan. In the age of paper maps, everyone knew it was silly to try to drive and unfold and read a map at the same time...somehow this common wisdom has been forgotten just because we can use pixels now.