[brianstorms]

Any Tesla owner can relate to this, given the wide variety (read: no consistency, no standards) of toggle buttons the car's UI utilizes.

For one, the HVAC. One button, showing temperature, which upon touched the system will react differently to depending on how you touch it and for how long. Touch it briefly, you get a little popup. Touch it slightly longer, and (hopefully, not guaranteed though) you get a bigger panel with full HVAC controls. Touch and hold for a couple seconds, and (hopefully, not guaranteed though) you turn off the HVAC if it's on. ALL WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING AND SUPPOSED TO WATCH THE ROAD. And if your hand/eye coordination is slightly off (and hey, when you're driving, going over bumps, etc, it very likely is) if you mis-aim by even a millimeter, you may touch another button and not realize it and do something unintended.

Another disaster: Tesla's entire connect-a-Bluetooth-device UX is one of the worst mishmashes of disastrous UI design I have ever seen in a shipping product, at least the 2012-2022 Model S implementation. Just one example, a button label down at the bottom right that still says "Connect" long after the device is already connected, but meanwhile elsewhere on the opposite side of screen, up top at the left, that says "Connecting..." then indicates the connection is made. All this in a UI that you only have a split second to glance at because it's in a CAR and you very well might be DRIVING. The Tesla Bluetooth UI could fill an entire chapter of a book on UI, it is so magnificently bad. Maybe I should write it.

[sgustard]

Tesla's mobile app features inconsistent toggles right next to each other!

- A closed padlock means the doors are locked. Tapping it unlocks the doors.

- The word "Open" on the trunk means the trunk is closed. Tapping it opens the trunk.

[uptime]

Yes, so bad. Those buttons do a poor job of allowing action and showing state at the same time - they only use one property (icon no color or slash etc.)

Also click-and-hold with or without haptics is not obvious. I was stabbing at the Tesla screen to activate defrost in a snow storm. I had to call the owner to figure out why it would not activate. I really like the 3 but you cant just hop in and go without some prep.

[brianstorms]

Yes, so true! The inconsistencies and non-standardization continues in Tesla's mobile app. There are many other examples there too.

[willsmith72]

you should write it, i always find these kinds of writeups fascinating, and tesla (therefore elon) being the subject would only make for more general interest

[ranguna]

Interesting, here's now I interact with my HVAC button:

1. Look at it

2. If it's slightly transparent and I want to turn it on, I click it (I don't hold for a second or 2 or 10, I just click it normally) and it turns on

3. Click it again to get the full controls

4. Slide down to close the full controls

5. Click the button again to open the full controls, and click the off button to turn it off.

Then I click and slide to the right or left to increase or decrease the temperature.

Seems pretty intuitive to me.

I'm gonna try clicking and holding next time I drive to turn it off, seems really useful.

[esafak]

Actually Bluetooth works well in my 2023 Model Y, and I am very pleased because it did not in my old Audi and Ford. There has to be something seriously messed up with the Bluetooth spec if implementations are always so bad.

[sizzle]

This should be illegal