[AT] driver convenience systems

[Jim Becker]

Modern cars/trucks have a lot of functionality and much of it can be configured to individual preference.  You can’t put enough buttons on the dash to set all of them.  That much choice requires use of some kind of display and menu system.  The problem comes up when the designers make bad choices for the limited number of things that can have a dedicated button.  One would hope that even the biggest idiot would not put something like a turn signal blinker 3 deep in a menu!  On the other hand, who cares how deep in a menu system you have to go to do a bluetooth pair up of your phone, or tell it whether to blink the headlights when the doors unlock.  My point is anything you are likely to want to change while driving needs a physical switch that you can easily find without looking at it.

The problem isn’t the existence of a menu system or the existence of an automatic control.  The problem is a bad implementation of the driver interface, that ignores the fact that ANY interaction between the driver and vehicle needs to be aware that the driver’s primary activity is driving, not playing with the electronic gadgets.  One of the reasons cell phones are such a problem for distracted driving is because they operate almost completely through touch screens that require you to look at the damn thing.

Jim Becker

From: Stephen Offiler 
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2020 4:38 AM
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group 
Subject: Re: [AT] driver convenience systems

Hey Cecil - let me just take that WAYYYY off topic.  Touch screen.  I work with CNC machines.  We found a niche where we purchase older machines and refurbish them to make our parts, and we still wind up at a small fraction of the cost of new.  Three machines that date to 1989-1991 have control panels that look a bit like an airplane cockpit, just a sea of knobs and switches.  Once you get used to it, they all make sense. We recently got a "new" machine, a 1997 model.  Very sparse control panel relatively speaking.  All the functions are in there, but I have to call up menus to make the changes that are a flip of a switch on the other machines.  I decided it must be a cost thing.  A couple lines of code in the operating system versus the cost of a toggle switch, the cost of drilling the hole, and the cost of running the wires.  That's quite a few dollars cost to the machine mfg per switch, and there's a lot of switches.  My actual problem with this is training the employees.  We have a lot of "old dog, new trick" problems at my workplace and the guys are pretty used to the toggle switches.

SO


On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 11:18 PM Cecil Bearden <crbearden at copper.net> wrote:

  Spencer:

  The ridiculous ting is that the setting is on a touch screen instead of a switch.
  Cecil


  On 1/22/2020 2:43 PM, Spencer Yost wrote:

    You can toggle a setting that allows the lighting stalk to be “normal” brights on/off or be auto dim on/off.  But it’s a touch screen setting and 3 menus down.... 



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