They Sat on It: Usability and Digital
Cars
In an excellent commentary by Christine Tierney, Business Week,
April 29, 2002
, Tierney wrote about the trials and tribulations of car owners who experienced
problems because of the complex electronic controls in their cars.
According to Tierney, the BMW Series 7 iDrive system enables drivers to
access e-mail as well as electronically adjust their auto suspension and
provides drivers with more than 700 options available from online menus. (As an
aside, compare the auto software with software applications; how many
software applications have 700 options? It would be interesting to know how many
lines of “bug free” programming code were written to support those 700
options.)
Tierney described reported problems from several auto
manufacturers that ranged from simple to mission critical:
- Batteries wore down much quicker because of electronic
systems power consumption.
- Electronic sensors reported false readings which caused
jerking and loss of acceleration. (The solution was to turn the auto off and
then restart; like a reboot on a computer.)
From a usability perspective, some simple things such as
dealers who forgot to recharge batteries in the demonstration autos, which lead
to the batteries failing quickly after the autos were driven off the dealer lots
by customers, to more complex problems such as electronic car keys (similar to
the keys used to open hotel room doors) which were scrambled because of
interference from radio and television signals, could have been easily avoided.
But other problems are typical of not understanding the “real world tasks”
of auto drivers by designers. Consider those electronic auto keys where drivers
did what most of us do with those electronic hotel room keys; the drivers put
them in their wallets and then sat on their wallets. According to Tierney, this
caused the cards to become warped and damaged and drivers could not unlock nor
start their autos.
The designers should have considered where people carry their metal auto keys
and where they would carry their electronic auto keys. Given that the electronic
car keys were similar to electronic hotel keys or even credit cards, it would
make sense that the electronic auto keys would be carried in wallets, dumped in
handbags, purses, or attached to key chains and so on. The electronic auto keys
needed to be more durable than any credit card or hotel key. (For those of us
who have worked in buildings where electronic badges were used, the badges
typically had to be replaced every few years. Will drivers need to replace their
electronic auto keys every few years?)
Tierney stated “They [automakers] have to foolproof the technology before the
technology proves them fools”. This is great example of where usability is as
needed in the auto industry as in the design of electronic books or distance
education courses. The cost of not understanding “real world tasks” often
comes back to haunt designers and developers. How often have you heard someone
say: “You would think they would have thought of that in the first place?”.
Tierney, C., 2002, The Digital Car Won’t Drive, Business Week,
April 29, 2002
, p. 56.
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