Stupid and arrogant move by Tesla, removing the turn signal stalks in new cars and forcing drivers to fumble around with buttons.
A physical example of how the tech industry constantly changes the UX in software -- like breaking into your house, rearranging your living room, and not allowing you to put it back the way you liked it in the first place.
@dangillmor Should changes in functional design like this require prior regulatory approval? If not, they should certainly be subject to mandatory recall when safety is proven to be compromised. One issue not mentioned in the article is the additional difficulty that small turn signal buttons in any location are going to cause for many people with impaired ability to use their fingers. I have very slight neuropathy in my fingers. I can drive our new Toyota fine, and the signal stalks are easy to use. However, the door lock buttons on the armrest and the buttons for audio amd other functions on the steering wheel are both smaller and more perfectly flush in the wheel than in our 2006 Toyota. It makes them harder to find at night and harder to operate at any time. Auto designers should have their teenage children and their parents or grandparents test out their hot new prototypes before putting them on the road.
As a fellow neuropathy sufferer, I completely agree with you. I've lost a significant amount of tactile sensation in my fingers. Driving one on these new cars will be damn near impossible for me to do safely.
@IAmDannyBoling@skip_lacaze@dangillmor I think it was Lee Iacocca who made his (all male) engineers drive their company's cars with shortened Popsicle sticks taped to their fingers so they would realize how frustrating the buttons and other controls were to women with long fingernails. They should do similar with band-aids over their fingertips to represent neuropathy.
That's a great idea. I think this is a bigger problem than people realize and as the size of the senior population will only grow, it'll only get worse.
@msbellows@IAmDannyBoling@skip_lacaze@dangillmor
They should also have people who are 5ft tall testing models. I can't even drive most US-company cars because they're designed for people over 5ft 8.
@PJ_Evans@msbellows@IAmDannyBoling@skip_lacaze@dangillmor I think that this is something that requires a range of models to address. I’m near average height, but overweight. I don’t think that I can expect every car to work for me and to also work for petite and tall people. It would be nice if a car like a Camry, one of the most popular midsized sedans in North America, had several seat options for differently shaped drivers. We picked ours partly because the adjustable power seat allowed my wife and I to both drive fairly comfortably. OTOH, they switched to a fixed headrest some years ago which will never be a good fit for me.
@PJ_Evans@IAmDannyBoling@skip_lacaze@dangillmor Can we also have people who are five feet tall stand in front of the front bumper, and if they're not visible to a 5-ft tall driver, the entire vehicle design gets thrown in the shitter?
@dangillmor I hate how that article starts out with "Elon Musk has revolutionized cars." No, motherfucker, he did not. If anything, the engineers he's overworking and underpaying did, but that's only if we assume that Teslas are a "revolution." I'd entertain the argument that they have accelerated the adoption of EVs, but everything else about them is the automotive equivalent of a piece of shit SPA JavaScript diarrhea web app.
@dangillmor Much in the same way "that's how we've always done it" isn't a good reason for doing anything, "for the sake of change" is also usually a terrible reason for breaking something.
@dangillmor It should be a huge scandal that regulatory authorities in this and other countries have allowed them them to do this sort of thing. Tons of safety/design elements are mandated by law in this and other countries and Tesla has been given a free pass in creating vehicles which do things in ways that very obviously compromise safety.
@dangillmor Serves them right for buying a fucking Tesla and enabling one of the most horrible people in the world. If I see my Lyft driver is driving a Tesla I cancel the trip.
@dangillmor
We don't need to regulate car controls so everybody knows where they are in any car because industry will do it by consensus, until one asshole decides not to. Just surprised you don't have to use your phone to drive your car. I suppose that's version 2.0.
@dangillmor
It's not a problem if you don't buy one😁
But yes, pushbuttons for operating while supposedly keeping eyes on the toad are stupid. Chrysler briefly tried a pushbutton control for automatic transmission years ago. No problem while driving, but still poorly received and dropped.
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