The Interaction & Interface Design Car Wreck

Sunday November 28 10:13

For designers, clearly, surfacing, paint colors, materials and interior fabric choices rule out over interface design, which is just plain forgotten about here . Unless it can be justified as, like…Formula 1 inspired, it just doesn’t seem to get any priority as an area of innovation. Look — hybrids barely get any consideration. Even the American car makers booths were bristling with cleaved “Boss” engines reminiscent of the $0.50 a gallon days.

*Sigh.

Well, there’s work to be done. Even the luxury cars could learn a trick or two from the IxDA world..This was a two hour wonder through the subdued LA Auto Show on Sunday. It’s hard to get excited about cars these days, save for the exuberant electric or hopeful hybrid. I chose to annoy myself by noting the wretched center console designs. Who’s in charge of these things, anyway?

Sunday November 28 09:18

Seriously. I wonder who has to program their office into their car nav. I mean..after the first day, or maybe even the first week of a new job, which you got so you could afford your fuck-off Porsche Cayenne. If you need your nav system to get you to the office everyday..even if you’re coming from the club, or dropping the kids off at school, or whatever..you’re doomed from the get-go.

Sunday November 28 09:34

What can you say? If I had to look at this everyday after spending..whatever. $40,000 on something? I’d cover it with butcher paper and use it as a notepad. Maybe leave a little hole for the austere analog clock there.

Sunday November 28 09:48

This is a Volvo. This speedo console actually isn’t so bad. It gives you messages close to the idiom of an SMS on your phone. So long as it doesn’t tip into Growl-style pop-ups, I think we’re okay here. It’s actually somewhere between charming and a bit uncanny valley-y..like..has my car turned into a message receiver? Why is my car discussing things with me? On the ride home, my friend Scott, who has an edition of this Volvo, noted that his car was reminding him to take it in for service in a similarly polite way — rather than “Service Engine” which is a deceptively calm way of telling you that there’s no more oil in the crankcase and your engine is pretty much a solid block of molten metal.

Sunday November 28 10:06

God, I’d ball-hammer whoever decided that the “Eco” mode of the car — presumably an energy-sensitive mode — should get this Evergreen tree icon and then sport and normal are left to this horrid sans serif with no iconographic or color or nuthin’. Why even bother? Like..*g’aahhh..Ball-hammer!

Sunday November 28 10:07

Sunday November 28 10:13

Now our cars require codes, PINs, and passwords — the wretched baggage of cold war security protocols which barely work for humans. Who wants to guess how many 1234’s and 0000’s will start a car? What’s the future of PINS and passwords and why is it not in my fancy, from the future car? I’m not talking about retinal scanners and biometrics here. Just simple, modest, low-level security like..pick a secret picture, your daughter’s favorite animal, &c. PIN? Really?

Sunday November 28 11:22

Jeeze. I’d almost prefer the old fashioned mechanical AM/FM radio than this Kafka-esque nightmare. Two knobs. Big old preset number keys from 1-6. A “Back” button the size of two keys. A four way that’s probably got a center-select. It’s just nuts.

Sunday November 28 10:11

Holy cripes. I mean..this is like 14 different things designed by 73 committees or something. It’s got Menus, Maps, Guides. Titles, XM, “Sound” (what??), CD (really. compact “disc” technology?). Category, Tune, Sync. And that’s an EIGHT way with a center select. EIGHT! It’s just a baroque meshuggener mess trying to look cool and failing miserably. MISERABLY. And on top of all that? The build quality would make me slap my forehead in regret every time I try to adjust the climate control knobs.

Sunday November 28 10:13

Okay. Someone should probably teach the designer of this display either about Camel Case or remind them that segmented LEDs can sometimes be retro, but only for hipster clocks and calculators.

Continue reading The Interaction & Interface Design Car Wreck

Scales of Material Things

Saturday May 16, 14.45.25

Scales of things and their relationships. A curious moment while out on a weekend’s Urban Scout, with these bicyclists, who could fit into the Smart Car that could fit into the ridiculous, shameless Hummer SUV. This scene reminded me of the image of relatives scales of occupancy between the same number of people, on bikes, public transportation buses, and in cars. Also in there is just how much space this same fixed number of people take up as normal, human pedestrians.

espacio coches

Why do I blog this? Curiosity pursues the relationships of things and their scales through the evolution of our propensity to measure and quantify. I’m curious about this history, as things have not always, nor do they necessarily have to always from now on, be measured with numbers. Why would one want to shift the units of measure from numbers and quantities to something else? Perhaps in some areas, because trust in numbers and bigger/smaller is better may not be the proper end-game. A larger number of features than the competitor’s thing-y does not always mean better experiences. More horse-power than your neighbor’s new fancy car does not always mean better for the environment. More room-y interior-ness leading to wider swaths of impermeable concrete does not mean a better world. Larger percentage returns/profits does not always mean a better future. We’ve come to a point of trusting numbers with such fluency and thoughtlessness that I think, at least for the Bureau of Counterweights and Alternative Measures, that it would be a good thing to think this all through, critically, historically, with good dose of introspection. What might other measures, counter to the ones we have now that appear so God-given and inalienable? So — how do you start making the case for other ways of coming to conclusions about what to make/design/do? First, figure out where all this came from, observe the scales of things in relation to the value of things. Think of alternative strategies.