The dashboard is filled with buttons. Screens. Arrows. More buttons. Symbols I don't understand.
I know how to start the vehicle and put it in gear (a knob!), but beyond that? It's like automakers want to create vehicles that can do a million things – give us directions, brew coffee, warm our seats, tell us when someone is approaching the car, critique our clothing, teach us new languages, open the tailgate whether we want it or not – but as a test: We can do those things only if we can figure out how.
Last summer, Mrs. Brad and I bought an all-electric car, knowing we'd have to hear people inform us that it takes other forms of energy to create electricity (really? Who knew?).
She loves the idea, while I fret about not having a long enough extension cord to reach our destination. She spends time watching YouTube videos to navigate the dashboard, while I complain that you shouldn't need to watch video to learn how to turn on the windshield wipers.
I don't know which of us is right (not true: I'm right), but it's indisputable that while driving cars has gotten simpler (press a button, put it in drive and steer), anything beyond that is much more complicated.
Take the radio. I was driving and just wanted to listen to a baseball game for a few minutes, so I looked around the steering wheel, dashboard and wall of buttons. Finally, I saw a button on the steering wheel that looked sort of like sounds coming from something (or was it an odor? Who knows?). I pushed that button and the radio came on. Fantastic!
But how to change stations? I hit another button and the radio changed to FM, then to "atmosphere sounds," where it played the sounds of birds singing. Finally, I found a way to change the radio station and kept hitting it until it got to KNBR. I listened to the game for a bit. Then I wanted to turn off the radio. Simple, right?
No, the button that turned it on didn't turn it off. Another switch changed the volume, but didn't turn it off. I tried a bunch of buttons, then looked at the screen in the center of the dashboard, which showed where I was driving, but had about 15 other options, all indicated by confusing symbols.
I discovered the outside temperature, the energy use rate and tracked a Russian submarine in the Atlantic Ocean. But the radio didn't turn off, so I finally parked the car, turned off the engine (the battery?) and checked. The radio was off! I'd found the off switch, which was the same as the car's off switch (although I'm sure there's some other trick).
I'm old school. I don't like that you open and close the hatchback by hitting buttons (or by standing behind the car, which inexplicably opens the trunk when you're having a conversation with a neighbor). I know there are plenty of great options with this and other new cars (because they keep telling us how great they are), but allow me to offer automakers some simple, game-changing advice: Simplify!
I don't mind all the options, but it should be easy to find the most-used options They should be obvious in the same way the simplest options on our TVs (volume, channel, input) are obvious.
Carmakers should make the wipers, radio, air conditioning/heater/defroster, horn, Bluetooth and lights have their own, obvious buttons or switches. Those options shouldn't be on level five of a screen, but should be clearly marked (with symbols and words).
Then allow us to discover the other symbols and options (is the symbol of the coffee cup necessary? I know when I'm tired) by using that screen and all the other buttons.
I don't want to go back to the days of push-starting my car and having only an AM radio, no intermittent wipers and having to tap a button on the floor to control your high beams. I just . . . no, wait a minute.
That's exactly what I want.
Alas, it's too late now.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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