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by xorcist 566 days ago
This is a lovely example of great design. Beautiful, too. I'm sad to see it didn't catch on.

On a related note, I would like to own an EV -- but a touchscreen operated car is out of the question. Where did all those competent designers go and why didn't they design an electric car?
2 comments
Cthulhu_ 566 days ago
Thankfully it looks/sounds like they're moving away again from touchscreen-only operation. It's probably an Apple effect where the established brands follow the innovator, without actually confirming what the innovator did was good.
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awinter-py 566 days ago
you and the us navy

https://news.usni.org/2019/08/09/navy-reverting-ddgs-back-to...

they ripped out the GUI-based controls after a bad crash

(actual story is more complicated though -- they transferred partial control of the helm to another station, instead of transferring full control, leading the new operator to think they had lost control of the boat. similar thing happened with air france 447 where a single pilot panicked and the others couldn't observe their control input)

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eternityforest 563 days ago
UX for control from multiple places is just really hard:

* How do you know what you have control of

* How do you take/give control

* When you release control, does the other guy's input instantly take over?

* Or does it only take effect when the other guy makes a change something?

* Do you need to be able to see the specific inputs the other guy is giving?

* Do you need to see the actual outputs if the result is actually some merged combination of inputs?

* Under what circumstances should the computer skip scheduled automated tasks due to manual action being taken(See the Gare de Lyon rail disaster)

* Do users need to know about the presence of absence of an automated control input that could, but has not yet taken effect?

* Does anything special need to happen when nobody at all is controlling it?

In home automation, the usual solution is basically just a mutable global, anything can change it, when you're not actively changing it, leave it alone so someone else can... But if you need more than that it gets complicated in a hurry.

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