What are bad technological flaws no one is addressing?
- Mobility.You cant use your phone while charging.
- Wastage of electricity as it is less efficient.
- It's not wireless. Charging Dock is connected to the outlet through a wire.
lunedì 18 dicembre 2017
lunedì 11 dicembre 2017
The 2018 International Consumer Electronics Show (International CES)
The 2018 International Consumer Electronics Show (International CES)
Considered the SuperBowl for global consumer electronics and consumer technology, The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, more commonly known as the International CES or CES (for short) is the world's gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. This tech tradeshow takes place every January in Las Vegas. At the upcoming International Consumer Electronics Show (International CES), expect thousands of exhibitors, showcasing the latest in innovations and technologies across 2.6 million net square feet of exhibit space.
As an attendee, you will be awed at a floor space filled with smartphones, smartwatches, drones, televisions, home entertainment systems, washing machines and a sea of people trying to see it all.
Breaking attendance records year after year, the 2017 CES in Las Vegas saw more than 170,000 attendees. A record international presence with more than 60,000 attendees from outside the U.S. representing 158 countries. The International Consumer Electronics Show (International CES) in 2017 hosted more than 3,600 exhibitors, showcasing the latest in innovations and technologies. Among them are manufacturers, suppliers of consumer technology hardware, developers, lots of techies and more.
CES Las Vegas will also feature a conference program with 220 conference sessions.
Exhibit Dates: January 9 - 12, 2018
Considered the SuperBowl for global consumer electronics and consumer technology, The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, more commonly known as the International CES or CES (for short) is the world's gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. This tech tradeshow takes place every January in Las Vegas. At the upcoming International Consumer Electronics Show (International CES), expect thousands of exhibitors, showcasing the latest in innovations and technologies across 2.6 million net square feet of exhibit space.
As an attendee, you will be awed at a floor space filled with smartphones, smartwatches, drones, televisions, home entertainment systems, washing machines and a sea of people trying to see it all.
Breaking attendance records year after year, the 2017 CES in Las Vegas saw more than 170,000 attendees. A record international presence with more than 60,000 attendees from outside the U.S. representing 158 countries. The International Consumer Electronics Show (International CES) in 2017 hosted more than 3,600 exhibitors, showcasing the latest in innovations and technologies. Among them are manufacturers, suppliers of consumer technology hardware, developers, lots of techies and more.
CES Las Vegas will also feature a conference program with 220 conference sessions.
Exhibit Dates: January 9 - 12, 2018
lunedì 4 dicembre 2017
Bad Icons: How to Identify and Improve Them
Bad Icons: How to Identify and Improve Them
by KARA PERNICE (Nielsen Norman Group)Summary: Related links are often chunked as a set, each with an icon. One bad icon hurts user interaction. A set of bad icons is worse because it amplifies confusion, adds clutter, and wastes screen real estate.
Sets of bad icons are very common on intranets. In fact, unhelpful sets of icons appear on most intranets I have seen. As an example, I just looked at this year’s Intranet Design Annual submissions. I excluded the ten winners and opened 20 other homepages at random. In almost every case I saw set of bad icons right away. In three cases there were none on the homepage, but I didn’t have to look far to find one. Only one out of the 20 intranets didn’t have any bad sets of icons. (That site didn’t have any icons at all.)
What Makes an Icon “Bad”
- The visual already has a different, established meaning. A star icon, for example is for rating and bookmarking, not to view “presentation templates.” The Internet Explorer icon means “launch Internet Explorer,” not “open a list of web links.”
- The reference is too esoteric and requires too many inferences. An image of a rocket may lead the occasional user to make the leap from “rocket” to “launch” to “app”, as in launch applications. Just as a bull’s eye with an arrow jabbed in its center may conjure “target” then “hit the target” then “financial targets” to finally, savings and retirement. But most users don’t want to solve a puzzle to understand an icon.
- Blurry. Assumedly because some intranet teams don’t have graphic designers on staff or proper software, some icons are produced with subpar tools, and are thus grainy-looking, fuzzy, and hard to make out.
- The icon is repeated for every item in a list. Why add a silhouette icon next to every user in a list of names, when the list contains only names and nothing else? Why add a small chain icon by each link in a list of links? Why add a paper icon next to each document in a list of documents?
- The icons only work as a set. Users should not have to study all icons in a set to determine the meaning of an individual icon.
 |
| Examples of intranet icons: without their labels, can you tell what each one is for? The solution is shown further down in this article. |
These following types of icon clusters frequently appear on the intranet homepage and other main section pages, probably because these pages act as a portal to more content and applications:
- Quicklinks (we don’t recommend this name) — links to the areas that are most commonly used, most important to the organization, personalized based on the user’s role, or customized by the user
- Processes
- Areas on the intranet
Why There Are So Many Bad Icons on Intranets
Intranets consolidate like commands and links in clusters. Clustering related items helps employees scan and digest pages more quickly. This good design principle, combined with good intentions and a chain of damaging events leads to bad icon design. A common scenario is this: A set of related links are placed together in a list, or as a set of buttons. One or two of the words — such as calendar or comment — in the set create an obvious opportunity to add an icon. The remaining words in the group don’t offer a straightforward iconic representation, but designers are now sold on the idea of using icons, so they conjure poor visuals to accompany or to replace each of the text links.
Another scenario is when a page is text-heavy, and the easiest solution is to break up the text with photos, illustrations, and icons.
Cost of a Bad Icon
If the plan is to always have a label with every icon, then why is a bad icon harmful? After all, the label will be there to disambiguate its meaning, right?
Wrong. Icons are not free, and not every link on your intranet deserves an icon. Each of the following resources used for icons have financial costs, interaction costs, and opportunity costs associated with them:
- Design and research: Icons don’t just materialize out of thin air. Unlike adding a text link, someone with graphic-design skill needs to create them. They are conjured, drawn, usability tested, and iterated.
- Development and support: Once created, they still need to be coded, quality-tested (usability-tested again), supported, and sometimes documented. This may be more work than implementing a text link.
- Screen real estate: Icons take up more space on the screen than text links alone. The space used means another UI component may be forced below the fold, onto another page, or must be omitted altogether.
- Information processing: Icons may add to visual noise. While good icons can be helpful, poor icons add clutter, and some are hard to understand.
The benefit the icon offers should be greater than the costs of having it.
 |
| Examples of intranet icons that are not helpful (from left to right): the ubiquitous wireless symbol used here to represent support, a hard-to decipher image of a person with a magnifying glass over his face to represent personalization, a briefcase standing for job listings, books to represent internal audit, and a chair with a speech bubble to represent departments. (To maintain anonymity of the organization who created these icons, we recreated them in different colors and slightly different styles, but the concepts are the same as the originals.) |
Benefits of Good Icons
There are many ways in which icons on intranets can help employees. Some of these include the following:
- Fast recognition: A familiar or memorable icon may quickly convey meaning — sometimes more so than a text link.
- Findability: When people learn what action is associated with a given icon, the icon’s presence can provide an opportunity for some users to locate the command quickly and to become thus more efficient with repetitive tasks. Still, we recommend including a text label on all icons, mainly to ensure that all commands are understandable even if the image isn’t identifiable to every user. With the text label always present, will the icon provide any additional benefit? Answer that question before deciding to include an icon.
- Easy-to-acquire targets: Targets that include both a word and an icon are larger than targets that are just the word or just an icon. These larger targets are easier to click and tap than smaller ones.
- Brand and style reinforcement: Icons that adhere to brand guidelines reinforce the intranet’s aesthetics style. (Links and buttons without icons can also do so, with color, style, shape, typeface, and color.)
Remember that good icons should be identifiable, quick to locate, and memorable.
Opportunities for Good Icons
Do you think you have a place where you can add some helpful icons? Before proceeding, make sure that:
- The concept or command that you want to enhance with an icon can be naturally represented by an icon. Don’t forget that some concepts are very complicated, and too difficult to represent with an icon.
- Your candidate visual for the icon will fit well in the available (usually small) space. Sometimes designers think of a great visual, but it’s impossible to minimize, shrink, crop, or take a portion of to make it work as an icon.
- The candidate icon is simple and easy to decipher, devoid of a lot of detail. People should not need to lean in or squint to decrypt the icon.
- The reference is obvious and easy to interpret at a glance, and does not require decoding, studying, or thinking. A web icon is not a painting in a museum — users shouldn’t have to stare at it for a long time. One fixation should be enough to understand it. (On an intranet, every second employees waste on poor design is one more second you pay their salary without getting any work done.)
Conclusion
Icons can help users recognize and recall commands. But, a set of links with icons of inconsistent quality will confuse employees and waste their time. Better to either brainstorm, research, and design a set of usable icons; or just use clear text links and no icons at all.
lunedì 27 novembre 2017
London UX Conference / March 17 – 23, 2018
March 17 – 23, 2018
NN/g's UX Conference helps you get up to speed on user experience best practices so you can create successful interfaces.
- 7 days of in-depth, full-day courses (attend as few or as many as you like)
- Proven methods and best practices
- Expert instructors teach practical skills
- No sales pitches
- UX Certification to test knowledge and build credibility
lunedì 20 novembre 2017
lunedì 13 novembre 2017
Using science to make truly tappable user interfaces
Using science to make truly tappable user interfaces
by Scott Hurff
You know that feeling even if you can’t name it — the mix of frustration and annoyance when you’re using a touch interface that you can’t quite get to work correctly. When you feel like you have to touch delicately just to trigger that command that’s right there in plain sight.
But what if you could create user interfaces on a regular basis that you knew would reasonably avoid this situation? What if you knew you could reliably create touch elements that helped your customers reduce errors, get things done faster, and ultimately be happier with your product?
It's possible. Let's explore why.
You've failed me for the last time, iOS 9
I used to run into this problem when using the music controls on the iOS 9 lock screen.
Thankfully, iOS 10 came along and changed things. Bigger controls. Generous tap targets. Larger artist and song information, making it way easier to read who’s gracing my headphones.
In other words, my on-the-go song hopping error rate noticeably decreased.
Why?
Science has the answer.
Learning from 120 million taps
In 2006, researchers from the University of Oulu, Finland and the University of Maryland, College Park teamed up. Their goal? To determine what size buttons were easiest to use on a touch screen for one-handed use.
They tested two scenarios. The first: people performing one-time tasks (things like activating buttons, check boxes, or radio buttons). The second: people performing a sequence of tasks, like inputting a phone number.
During the study, the researchers tested a range of button sizes for each scenario. They discovered that error rates increased significantly when buttons were smaller than 9.2mm for single tasks; the same happened for buttons smaller than 9.6mm for serial tasks.
Curiously, for the serial task phase, error rates held steady from 9.6mm up to 11.5mm. More on this later.
Five years later, a study was conducted by researchers from two German universities. Their goal: to determine the optimal touch target size for a touch screen button.
Curiously, the 2011 study also found accuracy improvements of little significance for target sizes over 12mm.
There are countless other studies I could cite, including recommended element sizes established by major vendors like Apple, Google, and Microsoft (which I’ll get into later) — but we first need to discuss the granddaddy of all of these standards: Fitts’s Law.
A time portal into history
As product designers, we’re benefiting from the hard work of our predecessors. In this instance, Paul Fitts — a psychologist at The Ohio State University (Go Bucks!) — created a principle in 1954 that would later become known as Fitts’s Law. It's since become a foundation of human-computer interaction.
At its most basic, Fitts's Law is a model for how long it takes for you to move your hand to an object. The closer the object and, roughly speaking, the larger it is, the quicker and easier it is to move your hand to it.
But Fitts was able to mathematically model this. And if applied to a touch screen interface, for example, we could determine how long it'd take for you to point your finger at something if we knew the size and distance of the objects on the screen.
Here's the actual equation:
MT = a + b log2(2A/W)
Where:
Now, I'm no mathematician, but the research I've done on this says that the logarithmic portion of this function is really important.
Cognitive scientist and co-author of the book Mind Hacks Tom Stafford summarizes the impact of this dynamic incredibly well:
"Although the basic message is obvious (big things are easier to select) it is the precise mathematical characterisation that is exciting, and that this characterisation includes a logarithmic function – which means that the shape of relationship between size and reaction time is curved so that small increases in size for small objects result make it much easier to select them (whereas small increases in size for big objects don’t make that much difference). And the same applies for changes in target distance."
What’s exciting is that modern research continues to prove this over and over again. In the two papers I cited before, each demonstrated diminishing returns past a certain button size — somewhere along 12mm to 15mm.
But the best part? We can use this to design better user interfaces.
Here’s how:
Designing better user interfaces using Fitts’s Law
by Scott Hurff
You know that feeling even if you can’t name it — the mix of frustration and annoyance when you’re using a touch interface that you can’t quite get to work correctly. When you feel like you have to touch delicately just to trigger that command that’s right there in plain sight.
But what if you could create user interfaces on a regular basis that you knew would reasonably avoid this situation? What if you knew you could reliably create touch elements that helped your customers reduce errors, get things done faster, and ultimately be happier with your product?
It's possible. Let's explore why.
You've failed me for the last time, iOS 9
I used to run into this problem when using the music controls on the iOS 9 lock screen.
For the life of me, whenever I wanted to skip a song while on the go, I couldn’t get the button to work on the first, second, sometimes third try. I’d even end up jacking the volume up high. Other times, I might pause the song.
Ultimately, the negative experience with this interface made me change my behavior: I avoided it.
This was a terrible failure. An interface designed with the sole intention of saving me time ended up costing me a lot of wasted minutes.
Somehow, somewhere, iOS 9’s music controls broke a key law of the user interface. But which one?
Thankfully, iOS 10 came along and changed things. Bigger controls. Generous tap targets. Larger artist and song information, making it way easier to read who’s gracing my headphones.
In other words, my on-the-go song hopping error rate noticeably decreased.
Why?
Science has the answer.
Learning from 120 million taps
In 2006, researchers from the University of Oulu, Finland and the University of Maryland, College Park teamed up. Their goal? To determine what size buttons were easiest to use on a touch screen for one-handed use.
They tested two scenarios. The first: people performing one-time tasks (things like activating buttons, check boxes, or radio buttons). The second: people performing a sequence of tasks, like inputting a phone number.
During the study, the researchers tested a range of button sizes for each scenario. They discovered that error rates increased significantly when buttons were smaller than 9.2mm for single tasks; the same happened for buttons smaller than 9.6mm for serial tasks.
Curiously, for the serial task phase, error rates held steady from 9.6mm up to 11.5mm. More on this later.
Five years later, a study was conducted by researchers from two German universities. Their goal: to determine the optimal touch target size for a touch screen button.
To conduct the study, the researchers released an Android game that was downloaded ~100,000 times, recording ~120M touch events. The gameplay was simple: players had to tap floating circles of various sizes to progress forward. The circles could be anywhere on the screen.
After analyzing the game’s tap events, the researchers found that for circles less than 15mm in size, gamers’ error rate steadily increased — rising sharply below ~12mm. And for tap targets less than 8mm, gamers missed the circles at rate of over 40%!
Curiously, the 2011 study also found accuracy improvements of little significance for target sizes over 12mm.
There are countless other studies I could cite, including recommended element sizes established by major vendors like Apple, Google, and Microsoft (which I’ll get into later) — but we first need to discuss the granddaddy of all of these standards: Fitts’s Law.
A time portal into history
As product designers, we’re benefiting from the hard work of our predecessors. In this instance, Paul Fitts — a psychologist at The Ohio State University (Go Bucks!) — created a principle in 1954 that would later become known as Fitts’s Law. It's since become a foundation of human-computer interaction.
At its most basic, Fitts's Law is a model for how long it takes for you to move your hand to an object. The closer the object and, roughly speaking, the larger it is, the quicker and easier it is to move your hand to it.
But Fitts was able to mathematically model this. And if applied to a touch screen interface, for example, we could determine how long it'd take for you to point your finger at something if we knew the size and distance of the objects on the screen.
Here's the actual equation:
MT = a + b log2(2A/W)
Where:
- MT = the time it takes to complete the movement
- a,b = parameters which vary with the situation
- A = distance of movement from start to target center
- W = width of the target along the axis of movement
Now, I'm no mathematician, but the research I've done on this says that the logarithmic portion of this function is really important.
Cognitive scientist and co-author of the book Mind Hacks Tom Stafford summarizes the impact of this dynamic incredibly well:
"Although the basic message is obvious (big things are easier to select) it is the precise mathematical characterisation that is exciting, and that this characterisation includes a logarithmic function – which means that the shape of relationship between size and reaction time is curved so that small increases in size for small objects result make it much easier to select them (whereas small increases in size for big objects don’t make that much difference). And the same applies for changes in target distance."
What’s exciting is that modern research continues to prove this over and over again. In the two papers I cited before, each demonstrated diminishing returns past a certain button size — somewhere along 12mm to 15mm.
But the best part? We can use this to design better user interfaces.
Here’s how:
Designing better user interfaces using Fitts’s Law
lunedì 6 novembre 2017
8 UX Advice For Beginners UX Designers
8 UX Advice For Beginners UX Designers (From My Experience)
by Sherif Amin
8 UX Advice
1- Don’t call yourself a UX Designer until you do a real work
2- You will never understand the problem until you listen to your users
3- Don’t go with your first solution
4- Don’t aim for perfection
5- UX is not about design only
6- No one is right
7- You can’t work alone
8- Don’t focus on deliverables
by Sherif Amin
8 UX Advice
1- Don’t call yourself a UX Designer until you do a real work
2- You will never understand the problem until you listen to your users
3- Don’t go with your first solution
4- Don’t aim for perfection
5- UX is not about design only
6- No one is right
7- You can’t work alone
8- Don’t focus on deliverables
lunedì 30 ottobre 2017
lunedì 23 ottobre 2017
Even the world’s top Apple blogger is losing it over a new MacBook Pro problem
Even the world’s top Apple blogger is losing it over a new MacBook Pro problem
by Chris Smith @chris_writes
Apple’s newest MacBooks apparently suffer from an unexpected problem, a keyboard issue that’s not easy to fix. Affected models include 2015 or later MacBook and 2016 or later MacBook Pro models. These laptops are thinner than ever, and Apple redesigned the mechanism under each key so that it could manufacture butterfly keyboards with an even slimmer profile.
Incredibly, it turns out that simple particles of dust can render individual keys on these machines useless, and dislodging them to fix them isn’t as easy as it was on older MacBook models.
Reports recently published in The Outline and 512pixels indicate that some users are experiencing serious issues with their keyboards.
The Outline explains that replacing a faulty keyboard isn’t possible. Apple has to replace the top case, which has a $700 price tag if the MacBook Pro is out of warranty. Apparently, plenty of buyers are affected:
It’s unclear how big of a problem butterfly switch keyboards are. Apple forums are overflowing with reports of Geniuses who have told customers that Apple is “collecting data” on the issue. One corporate issuer of the MacBook Pros in question reported to me that its business has encountered a significant number of keyboard issues, but “less than 5% for sure.” Another Genius explained to me that he had seen an overwhelming number of the computers with keyboard issues, the spacebar in particular — while some keys can be very delicately removed, the spacebar breaks every single time anyone, including a professional, tries to remove it. This is a big problem, since, according to the Genius I spoke to, it’s the key most susceptible to acting up from the aforementioned piece of dust. “I would say it’s THE issue on this computer,” he told me. (Apple declined to comment.)
What further proves the new butterfly keyboards have a dust issue is this Apple support document that’s basically insane. If you need to have this guide on your site, it means a significant number of MacBook buyers experience keyboard issues, and it’s not a problem that is going to go away:
You need a particular set of skills to clean the keyboard by yourself and not drop the MacBook in the process. The best thing about it is holding the Mac at a 75-degree angle “so it’s not quite vertical,” before using compressed air to eliminate the dust.
Even John Gruber, a diehard Apple fan and respected blogger, is upset about it. “I find these keyboards — specifically, the tales of woe about keys getting stuck or ceasing to work properly — a deeply worrisome sign about Apple’s priorities today,” he said, in a response to The Outline’s story.
What’s worse about it is that we have a song for this issue created by Jonathan Mann, the same guy who mocked Apple’s “Antennagate” issue.
by Chris Smith @chris_writes
Apple’s newest MacBooks apparently suffer from an unexpected problem, a keyboard issue that’s not easy to fix. Affected models include 2015 or later MacBook and 2016 or later MacBook Pro models. These laptops are thinner than ever, and Apple redesigned the mechanism under each key so that it could manufacture butterfly keyboards with an even slimmer profile.
Incredibly, it turns out that simple particles of dust can render individual keys on these machines useless, and dislodging them to fix them isn’t as easy as it was on older MacBook models.
Reports recently published in The Outline and 512pixels indicate that some users are experiencing serious issues with their keyboards.
The Outline explains that replacing a faulty keyboard isn’t possible. Apple has to replace the top case, which has a $700 price tag if the MacBook Pro is out of warranty. Apparently, plenty of buyers are affected:
It’s unclear how big of a problem butterfly switch keyboards are. Apple forums are overflowing with reports of Geniuses who have told customers that Apple is “collecting data” on the issue. One corporate issuer of the MacBook Pros in question reported to me that its business has encountered a significant number of keyboard issues, but “less than 5% for sure.” Another Genius explained to me that he had seen an overwhelming number of the computers with keyboard issues, the spacebar in particular — while some keys can be very delicately removed, the spacebar breaks every single time anyone, including a professional, tries to remove it. This is a big problem, since, according to the Genius I spoke to, it’s the key most susceptible to acting up from the aforementioned piece of dust. “I would say it’s THE issue on this computer,” he told me. (Apple declined to comment.)
What further proves the new butterfly keyboards have a dust issue is this Apple support document that’s basically insane. If you need to have this guide on your site, it means a significant number of MacBook buyers experience keyboard issues, and it’s not a problem that is going to go away:
You need a particular set of skills to clean the keyboard by yourself and not drop the MacBook in the process. The best thing about it is holding the Mac at a 75-degree angle “so it’s not quite vertical,” before using compressed air to eliminate the dust.
Even John Gruber, a diehard Apple fan and respected blogger, is upset about it. “I find these keyboards — specifically, the tales of woe about keys getting stuck or ceasing to work properly — a deeply worrisome sign about Apple’s priorities today,” he said, in a response to The Outline’s story.
What’s worse about it is that we have a song for this issue created by Jonathan Mann, the same guy who mocked Apple’s “Antennagate” issue.
lunedì 16 ottobre 2017
What would be the worst possible design for a sink?
What would be the worst possible design for a sink?
Answers from Quora.com:
Carlo Sirna
This one:
Looks great right?
OK, now wash your teeth, spit the toothpaste into it and try to clean it.
Why this homemade wooden sink is so much shared in woodworkers forums is a total mystery to me.
Design Suggestion
A larger sink could be used, designed so that the faucets are a part of the sink instead of a separate installation on the counter. When the faucets are adjusted, a larger sink would allow the water that drops down to drain back into the sink, rather than to run over the top of the counter.
Another solution is to install faucets that automatically adjust the water flow without having to move one's hands away from the sink.
Answers from Quora.com:
____________
Carlo Sirna
This one:
 |
| Stunning Wooden Sink |
Looks great right?
OK, now wash your teeth, spit the toothpaste into it and try to clean it.
Why this homemade wooden sink is so much shared in woodworkers forums is a total mystery to me.
___________
Take a glance at this sink:
 |
| Clear Blue Tempered Glass Sink |
Looks like a normal sink right? Take a closer look at it? Where do you put the soap? Or anything? You finish brushing your teeth right? You put the toothbrush down on th- Oh wait, there's nothing around the sink, the vanity. You can put a towel on the bottom to dry off your hands, but there's really no point because your hands won't be clean…(no soap).
____________
 |
| photo via unicornhornsandlgitter |
___________
Copyright © Michael J. Darnell 1996-2010
We recently moved into a newly-constructed building at work. The picture on the left shows one of the bathroom sinks in the new building.
After the sink is used a few times, the top of the counter becomes covered with water. (See the arrow.) The problem is that as one adjusts the faucets with wet hands, water drops down onto the counter and accumulates there.
A larger sink could be used, designed so that the faucets are a part of the sink instead of a separate installation on the counter. When the faucets are adjusted, a larger sink would allow the water that drops down to drain back into the sink, rather than to run over the top of the counter.
Another solution is to install faucets that automatically adjust the water flow without having to move one's hands away from the sink.
____________
Hansgrohe ComfortZone
 |
| Hansgrohe ComfortZone test |
Irritating water splashes due to mismatched combinations of mixer and washbasin – perhaps that’s something you’ve already experienced. As of now, your customers‘ associated annoyance is a thing of the past.
lunedì 9 ottobre 2017
Will robots take my job?
This site estimates how likely you are to lose your job to artificial intelligence.
In 2013 Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne published a report titled "The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?”. The authors examine how susceptible jobs are to computerisation, by implementing a novel methodology to estimate the probability of computerisation for 702 detailed occupations, using a Gaussian process classifier.
In 2013 Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne published a report titled "The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?”. The authors examine how susceptible jobs are to computerisation, by implementing a novel methodology to estimate the probability of computerisation for 702 detailed occupations, using a Gaussian process classifier.
According to their estimates, about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk. Although the report is specific to the US job market, it is easy to see how this might apply all over the world.
We extracted the jobs and the probability of automation from the report and have made it easy to search for your job. We’ve added some additional information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to provide some additional information about the jobs.
Is your job at risk of being taken over by computers?
____________________
Researchers have found that nearly half of 702 US jobs could be at risk of automation. Find out using our interactive the probability of your job role being replaced by computerisation.
________________________
 |
| BBC |
 |
| BBC |
lunedì 2 ottobre 2017
Why are traditional knobs not replaced by touchscreens in cockpits?
Why are traditional knobs not replaced by touchscreens in cockpits?
by Aviation Stack Exchange
Answers
Look at the switches and knobs in an airplane up close some time. You'll notice that nearly all of them have different textures,heights,sizes or shapes. That's intentional. Pilots train and train and train and train on checklists, especially the emergency ones. Muscle memory is a big part of quickly and correctly executing an emergency checklist.
As an example, flap levers/switches normally have a cap or top that is flat and parallel to the wings. It's easy to identify solely by touch.
Checklist item: "flaps up" Action: Hand to flap lever (automatic after doing it a hundred times in training), verify feel of lever, move, look to verify
Without the tactile element, every motion would have to be verified by looking before it's made. With the tactile element, the movement can be made and then verified visually while the hand is moving to the next item. In an emergency, every second counts and the savings from tactile + verify matters.
Beyond emergency procedures, they're simply safer. The plane I fly the most has a touch screen display and several non touch devices. In turbulence, the touch screen is basically useless. But, the important devices all have buttons and knobs. I can be banging my head on the ceiling (literally) and still adjust the auto-pilot or radio. In that kind of turbulence, the touch screen device is completely useless.
Flicking a switch gives clear haptic and audible feedback. Compare that to a touchscreen where you can never be sure if your intention has been interpreted correctly. This might not seem to matter much, but if you need to throw 20 switches in a hurry, the mechanical solution is head and shoulders above anything with a touch input.
Mechanical switches can be operated with gloves on. Touchscreens generally cannot.
If the computer driving the touchscreen crashes, you are out of control. Mechanical switches don't have this failure mode.
Mechanical switches are far easier to debug than touchscreens. You can make sure if the switch works by using a screwdriver and a voltmeter. And some knowledge of the routing, admittedly.
Inadvertently flicking a mechanical switch is so much harder than one on a touchscreen, especially if it has a cage to protect it from movements in an off direction.
Mechanical switches gives a better visual inspection than digital touch screens. For a pilot surrounded with so many switches, just a visual glance would be enough to find the position of the control.
Don't try at home experiment:
Also, it is easier to specially and individually protect mechanical actuators against accidental manipulation than making hundreds of dedicated touch screens and protect those.
It makes no sense if each knob/switch needs to be implemented as a dedicated touch screen, with a fallible control computer or some electronics behind it (in addition to the switching logic behind the knob or switch).
by Aviation Stack Exchange
Answers
Look at the switches and knobs in an airplane up close some time. You'll notice that nearly all of them have different textures,heights,sizes or shapes. That's intentional. Pilots train and train and train and train on checklists, especially the emergency ones. Muscle memory is a big part of quickly and correctly executing an emergency checklist.
As an example, flap levers/switches normally have a cap or top that is flat and parallel to the wings. It's easy to identify solely by touch.
Checklist item: "flaps up" Action: Hand to flap lever (automatic after doing it a hundred times in training), verify feel of lever, move, look to verify
Without the tactile element, every motion would have to be verified by looking before it's made. With the tactile element, the movement can be made and then verified visually while the hand is moving to the next item. In an emergency, every second counts and the savings from tactile + verify matters.
Beyond emergency procedures, they're simply safer. The plane I fly the most has a touch screen display and several non touch devices. In turbulence, the touch screen is basically useless. But, the important devices all have buttons and knobs. I can be banging my head on the ceiling (literally) and still adjust the auto-pilot or radio. In that kind of turbulence, the touch screen device is completely useless.
_______
Flicking a switch gives clear haptic and audible feedback. Compare that to a touchscreen where you can never be sure if your intention has been interpreted correctly. This might not seem to matter much, but if you need to throw 20 switches in a hurry, the mechanical solution is head and shoulders above anything with a touch input.
Mechanical switches can be operated with gloves on. Touchscreens generally cannot.
If the computer driving the touchscreen crashes, you are out of control. Mechanical switches don't have this failure mode.
Mechanical switches are far easier to debug than touchscreens. You can make sure if the switch works by using a screwdriver and a voltmeter. And some knowledge of the routing, admittedly.
Inadvertently flicking a mechanical switch is so much harder than one on a touchscreen, especially if it has a cage to protect it from movements in an off direction.
_______
Mechanical switches gives a better visual inspection than digital touch screens. For a pilot surrounded with so many switches, just a visual glance would be enough to find the position of the control.
_______
Beyond the obvious aviation reasons of cost and so on, I can think of a few reasons why I'd not want an over reliance on touchscreens in the cockpit:
- If a touchscreen fails, you've lost all the controls that were related to it.
- Likewise, if a touchscreen (or portion of) fails then the whole thing has to be replaced rather than just the button
- Feedback - phones and similar devices offer things like haptic feedback to register a positive touch. I can't imagine that being implemented and working well in a fixed monitor. Pressing a button provides a positive reinforcement that you did press the button.
- Using touch-screens is hard if they're not still - it's far easier to press a physical button, without pressing an adjacent button, than it is to press an area on a screen without accidentally glancing another area.
- Some controls are designed to be easy to operate, while being hard to do accidentally - for example flaps, gears, mixture etc. All of these require some positive force.
With that said - you've posted some advantages and, in honesty, I suspect it'll all happen one day. So, for that reason, in the meantime I give you the stock answer to any "Why isn't..." aviation question:
- Cost
- Certification
- Proven reliability
- Market demand
Unless pilots and airliners are crying out for it, and a manufacturers think it will make the difference between whether they buy a particular aircraft or not, they simply aren't going to spend the time and money necessary to make it a reality.
Additionally, it'll almost certainly come in slowly. It's one thing to add some touch functionality to a flight computer but I wouldn't be expecting flap and gear levers to be touch sensitive anytime soon!
_______
- Spill lots of water on a touch screen and try to use it.
- Close your eyes and use your touch phone or tablet.
- Try the same with knobs and switches.
Also, it is easier to specially and individually protect mechanical actuators against accidental manipulation than making hundreds of dedicated touch screens and protect those.
It makes no sense if each knob/switch needs to be implemented as a dedicated touch screen, with a fallible control computer or some electronics behind it (in addition to the switching logic behind the knob or switch).
lunedì 25 settembre 2017
Reach Out And Touch Something … Screen or Knob?
Reach Out And Touch Something … Screen or Knob?
by Doug DeMuro
I recently had the chance to test out the “new” Volkswagen Passat, which is so new that the designers were explaining to a whole group of journalists how the position of the rear reflectors has changed compared to the outgoing model.
Actually, I kind of like the new Passat. It was impressive in a lot of ways, right down to the new touchscreen, which finally sees Volkswagen catching up to some of the technology and features rival models have been using for roughly five years. As I was driving it, I couldn’t help but think to myself: I like a good touchscreen.
What I don’t like is a knob.
It seems that these are our only choices in today’s infotainment world: a touchscreen or a knob. Some cars have touchscreens. Some cars have knobs. And given that basically every new car has an infotainment system, this is an important choice. Do you want to control your screen by touching it, like a smartphone? Or by moving around a controller located on the center console, like a computer?
Automakers appear to be largely split on this issue. Most mainstream car companies, the Fords and Chevys of the world, offer a touchscreen. You touch, it screens. The benefit of this is that you touch exactly where you want, and the system does exactly what you want, unless you are in a Chevy, in which case it does what you want after it thinks for a few seconds/minutes/it’ll do it this weekend.
High-end brands tend to prefer knobs. Lexus has its famous Remote Touch Controller, which is sort of like a computer mouse in the sense that you move around a little arrow and you click on stuff, but not really like a computer mouse in the sense that you’re supposed to do this at 75 mph. BMW’s iDrive and Audi’s MMI both work similarly: you move a dial to control the infotainment system. You could touch the screen, but it wouldn’t do anything, and you’d just end up getting fingerprints on it.
by Doug DeMuro
I recently had the chance to test out the “new” Volkswagen Passat, which is so new that the designers were explaining to a whole group of journalists how the position of the rear reflectors has changed compared to the outgoing model.
Actually, I kind of like the new Passat. It was impressive in a lot of ways, right down to the new touchscreen, which finally sees Volkswagen catching up to some of the technology and features rival models have been using for roughly five years. As I was driving it, I couldn’t help but think to myself: I like a good touchscreen.
What I don’t like is a knob.
It seems that these are our only choices in today’s infotainment world: a touchscreen or a knob. Some cars have touchscreens. Some cars have knobs. And given that basically every new car has an infotainment system, this is an important choice. Do you want to control your screen by touching it, like a smartphone? Or by moving around a controller located on the center console, like a computer?
Automakers appear to be largely split on this issue. Most mainstream car companies, the Fords and Chevys of the world, offer a touchscreen. You touch, it screens. The benefit of this is that you touch exactly where you want, and the system does exactly what you want, unless you are in a Chevy, in which case it does what you want after it thinks for a few seconds/minutes/it’ll do it this weekend.
High-end brands tend to prefer knobs. Lexus has its famous Remote Touch Controller, which is sort of like a computer mouse in the sense that you move around a little arrow and you click on stuff, but not really like a computer mouse in the sense that you’re supposed to do this at 75 mph. BMW’s iDrive and Audi’s MMI both work similarly: you move a dial to control the infotainment system. You could touch the screen, but it wouldn’t do anything, and you’d just end up getting fingerprints on it.
Me, I personally prefer a touchscreen. Let me tell you why: because it’s incredibly easy to use. A button says “MAP.” I press “MAP.” The MAP comes up. This is very different than in, say, a BMW 7 Series, where a button says “MAP,” so you grab the little dial, and you move over to the button, and you’re about to click on it, but then there’s a bump in the road, and you accidentally click somewhere else, such as on a button that says “CLIMATE,” and now you have no idea where you’re going, so you crash into a bus shelter.
Of course, I am not saying that the BMW 7 Series is scary. What I am saying is that the BMW 7 Series is incredibly scary.
But the manufacturers that use knobs don’t see it that way. They say that if they put the knob in the center console, they can move the infotainment screen higher on the dashboard, away from your reach, which means you have to take your eyes off the road less in order to do things. This is true, of course, but I would like to point out that I would take my eyes off the road even less if I could just touch the damn screen wherever I want.
Maybe the best manufacturer is Mazda, who undoubtedly had this argument in some engineering meeting, which likely led to raised voices and harsh words and maybe even some good old-fashioned chair throwin’. So what they did is, they put in a knob and a touchscreen. This allows you to use both hands to control the screen at any one given time.
No, I’m just kidding, what it allows you to do is use the touchscreen when you’re feeling touchscreeny and use the knob when you’re feeling knobby. I think this is Mazda’s greatest decision since 2002, when they decided to start making decent cars.
Unfortunately, it’s not a decision anyone else seems to be making, as other automakers have all staked their claims: some have gone touchscreen. Some have gone knob. But I will continue to hope that in this great war of in-car screen controls, the touchscreen people will slay the knob people and claim victory over the Great Land of Infotainment. Until then, I will do my best to keep from crashing into bus shelters.
by Doug DeMuro
lunedì 18 settembre 2017
Five worst new car features reinvent the wheel for no reason
Five worst new car features reinvent the wheel for no reason
by Robert Duffer - Contact Reporter - Copyright © 2017, Chicago Tribune
The state of the auto industry is one of opposites. There are sport utility vehicles with more horsepower than sports cars, and pickup trucks equipped like luxury flagships. Americans hold on to their cars for over 11 years yet new car sales broke records in 2015 and again in 2016. Yet we're also paying record high prices of more than $34,000 to load up our vehicles with stuff that aggravates us.
So much stuff. Even though there are few new car duds, consumer complaints are on the rise because of technology ranging from balky voice commands to glitchy touch screens and enough dings, blings and dongs to make you dizzy.
In this cutthroat competitive market, where horsepower and mpg are incrementally maxed out, the next place an automaker can stand out is with in-car technology. At best, it makes us safer and provides convenience. At worst, and too often, it makes us confused.
Complaints on the suite of systems generally known as infotainment accounts for 22 percent — the largest category — of consumer complaints in the first three years of ownership, according to the 2017 J.D. Power vehicle dependability study.
From voice recognition fails to Bluetooth drops, either owners are expecting in-car technology to be as intuitive as smartphones or carmakers are hamstrung about how to safely offer such levels of connectivity.
"Increased complexity equals increased problems," Consumer Reports warned consumers (and automakers) in its 2016 car reliability survey.
Here are the biggest sources of new car frustration.
Touch screens
Looking at it from an evolutionary view, touch screens had to happen to get to the next thing. With the backup camera mandated in all 2018 model year vehicles, it made sense to combine audio, climate, navigation, phone and vehicle info functions into the screen. But too often, especially in Asian makes, the buttons are too small, the interface too layered to safely execute a simple command. It becomes something many drivers would rather not use.
On the other hand, Tesla's massive 17-inch touch screen is intuitive and excellent. Most automakers are dialing down touch screens with the return of climate and audio buttons in sleek, spartan designs that complement the display screen. While we prefer the Germans' and Mazda's use of a control dial to access all that valuable information and all those pricey functions, some makes such as Chevrolet have done well using redundant steering controls to access the info in a condensed screen in the instrument cluster. It's as easy to use as setting the cruise. The roads would be safer, and drivers less frustrated, with the elimination of the touch screen.
Touch-sensitive controls ... continue on Chicago Tribune
by Robert Duffer - Contact Reporter - Copyright © 2017, Chicago Tribune
 |
| The shifter of a BMW 740L diesel is seen at the media preview of the 2014 Chicago Auto Show at McCormick Place in Chicago on Feb. 6, 2014. Gear knobs that default to a middle setting make it unclear what gear a vehicle is in. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) |
So much stuff. Even though there are few new car duds, consumer complaints are on the rise because of technology ranging from balky voice commands to glitchy touch screens and enough dings, blings and dongs to make you dizzy.
In this cutthroat competitive market, where horsepower and mpg are incrementally maxed out, the next place an automaker can stand out is with in-car technology. At best, it makes us safer and provides convenience. At worst, and too often, it makes us confused.
Complaints on the suite of systems generally known as infotainment accounts for 22 percent — the largest category — of consumer complaints in the first three years of ownership, according to the 2017 J.D. Power vehicle dependability study.
From voice recognition fails to Bluetooth drops, either owners are expecting in-car technology to be as intuitive as smartphones or carmakers are hamstrung about how to safely offer such levels of connectivity.
"Increased complexity equals increased problems," Consumer Reports warned consumers (and automakers) in its 2016 car reliability survey.
Here are the biggest sources of new car frustration.
Touch screens
Looking at it from an evolutionary view, touch screens had to happen to get to the next thing. With the backup camera mandated in all 2018 model year vehicles, it made sense to combine audio, climate, navigation, phone and vehicle info functions into the screen. But too often, especially in Asian makes, the buttons are too small, the interface too layered to safely execute a simple command. It becomes something many drivers would rather not use.
On the other hand, Tesla's massive 17-inch touch screen is intuitive and excellent. Most automakers are dialing down touch screens with the return of climate and audio buttons in sleek, spartan designs that complement the display screen. While we prefer the Germans' and Mazda's use of a control dial to access all that valuable information and all those pricey functions, some makes such as Chevrolet have done well using redundant steering controls to access the info in a condensed screen in the instrument cluster. It's as easy to use as setting the cruise. The roads would be safer, and drivers less frustrated, with the elimination of the touch screen.
Touch-sensitive controls ... continue on Chicago Tribune
lunedì 11 settembre 2017
In Praise of Knobs
In Praise of Knobs
by Phil Patton (writes about design and cars for the New York Times)
Don't call it a comeback: Knobs could save infotainment.
I like knobs. Steve Jobs liked knobs. John Varvatos, the fashion designer with his own Chrysler 300 edition, likes knobs. In fact, Varvatos has created what might be thought of as a temple dedicated to knobs. In his New York store, occupying the former CBGB’s, the legendary punk bar on the Bowery, he displays a prime collection of 1960s and 1970s audio equipment with large, brushed-metal knobs, solid as the turrets of Admiral Dewey’s battleships, faces gleaming with ever-shifting reflections. Touch the knobs on such equipment and they convey to the fingers a solid feel, light but sure. Turning carefully calibrated knobs can be immensely satisfying. They have the quality we are searching for and find largely missing in the many interfaces in our lives. We want the same happy relationship of finger to surface in a touch screen, say, as we swipe and pinch or drag and zoom. No wonder the knob is making a comeback. Especially in the complex infotainment systems where voice and touch have come up short, knobs are back. Ford executive Joe Hinrichs recently said he would fix the much maligned MyFord Touch with more knobs. Steve Jobs, who of course put a knob on the original iPod (Apple called it a “scroll wheel”), was also a big fan of the stereo equipment on display at Varvatos—those huge units from Pioneer, Marantz, and McIntosh, with big two- or three-inch knobs that could be tuned precisely. Jobs loved stereo equipment, and legend holds that McIntosh, along with the apple, was one of the inspirations for the Macintosh name. However, the ultimate knob experts may be Audi’s knob gnomes, researchers who are part of the company’s haptics team, which focuses on sensory—especially touch—experiences, in Ingolstadt, Germany.
The knob gnomes are proof that car knobs have become more than simple utilitarian controls; they are now elements of brand differentiation. Jaguar’s shift knob rises dramatically from the console on startup, and Audi is proud of what it calls the “Audi click.” The lab guys can show you on a machine the exact resistance that makes for the Audi click (it’s really a double click). Getting a knob’s feel right would seem easy, but after visiting Audi, other vehicle knobs suddenly felt sticky or mushy. A good knob can be as satisfying as precise steering or well-balanced brakes, while a bad one ruins the experience.
Knob design is part of the haptics discipline. The sense of touch depends on several different kinds of nerves. Each is named for a scientist; Ruffini endings and Merkel mechanoreceptors convey pressure and texture, for example, and Meissner’s corpuscles offer information from a lighter touch while Pacinian corpuscles, located deeper beneath the surface, require more pressure. But measuring the responses of these nerves is difficult. “Haptics are difficult to express in numbers. Haptic evaluation is very subjective,” explains Audi’s Johann Schneider, director of the company’s lab. The goal is for the driver to immediately feel comfortable and have a sense of precision. The knob team tries to define such elements as ease of motion, well-defined end stops, uniform actuation sound, and clear feedback. “You won’t be able to please every customer,” says Schneider’s colleague, Manfred Mittermeier. “Actuation haptics and operating acoustics are usually perceived subconsciously. If we achieve 80 percent, that means we have a very good concept.”
People often speak of good controls as intuitive, but that usually means they follow familiar patterns. Although a knob’s operation generally needs no explaining, it is not an especially apt control tool for every job. In his classic 1959 text, The Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design, designer Henry Dreyfuss states that the input device needs to fit the nature of the input. He advocated one- or two-inch knobs for selecting amounts of things or quantities. Push buttons are better for choosing among discrete entities, such as park and reverse.
Even so, knobs in cars are taking over new functions. Ram is very proud of its dashboard shifter knob and highlights it in television ads. Car knobs are indirect evolutions of stereo knobs, and are, in part, based on the turn-and-push knobs devised by the late legendary designer David Lewis for Bang & Olufsen electronics. He told me once that he first devised these knobs for a 1960s audio project, inspired by the big knobs already on stereo equipment, but placed flush with the surface and equipped with a “dimple” for fingertip control. “That tactile feedback of turning and clicking is reassuring,” Lewis said. “The idea was to concentrate many functions in one button.”
The best interfaces, he said, are those based on years of familiarity. “We were building on established conventions that were known and understood, going back to the early telephone.” Considering that today’s handheld phones are often nothing but a screen, tomorrow’s knobs will have to be good if they are to survive.
Phil Patton
by Phil Patton (writes about design and cars for the New York Times)
Don't call it a comeback: Knobs could save infotainment.
I like knobs. Steve Jobs liked knobs. John Varvatos, the fashion designer with his own Chrysler 300 edition, likes knobs. In fact, Varvatos has created what might be thought of as a temple dedicated to knobs. In his New York store, occupying the former CBGB’s, the legendary punk bar on the Bowery, he displays a prime collection of 1960s and 1970s audio equipment with large, brushed-metal knobs, solid as the turrets of Admiral Dewey’s battleships, faces gleaming with ever-shifting reflections. Touch the knobs on such equipment and they convey to the fingers a solid feel, light but sure. Turning carefully calibrated knobs can be immensely satisfying. They have the quality we are searching for and find largely missing in the many interfaces in our lives. We want the same happy relationship of finger to surface in a touch screen, say, as we swipe and pinch or drag and zoom. No wonder the knob is making a comeback. Especially in the complex infotainment systems where voice and touch have come up short, knobs are back. Ford executive Joe Hinrichs recently said he would fix the much maligned MyFord Touch with more knobs. Steve Jobs, who of course put a knob on the original iPod (Apple called it a “scroll wheel”), was also a big fan of the stereo equipment on display at Varvatos—those huge units from Pioneer, Marantz, and McIntosh, with big two- or three-inch knobs that could be tuned precisely. Jobs loved stereo equipment, and legend holds that McIntosh, along with the apple, was one of the inspirations for the Macintosh name. However, the ultimate knob experts may be Audi’s knob gnomes, researchers who are part of the company’s haptics team, which focuses on sensory—especially touch—experiences, in Ingolstadt, Germany.
The knob gnomes are proof that car knobs have become more than simple utilitarian controls; they are now elements of brand differentiation. Jaguar’s shift knob rises dramatically from the console on startup, and Audi is proud of what it calls the “Audi click.” The lab guys can show you on a machine the exact resistance that makes for the Audi click (it’s really a double click). Getting a knob’s feel right would seem easy, but after visiting Audi, other vehicle knobs suddenly felt sticky or mushy. A good knob can be as satisfying as precise steering or well-balanced brakes, while a bad one ruins the experience.
Knob design is part of the haptics discipline. The sense of touch depends on several different kinds of nerves. Each is named for a scientist; Ruffini endings and Merkel mechanoreceptors convey pressure and texture, for example, and Meissner’s corpuscles offer information from a lighter touch while Pacinian corpuscles, located deeper beneath the surface, require more pressure. But measuring the responses of these nerves is difficult. “Haptics are difficult to express in numbers. Haptic evaluation is very subjective,” explains Audi’s Johann Schneider, director of the company’s lab. The goal is for the driver to immediately feel comfortable and have a sense of precision. The knob team tries to define such elements as ease of motion, well-defined end stops, uniform actuation sound, and clear feedback. “You won’t be able to please every customer,” says Schneider’s colleague, Manfred Mittermeier. “Actuation haptics and operating acoustics are usually perceived subconsciously. If we achieve 80 percent, that means we have a very good concept.”
People often speak of good controls as intuitive, but that usually means they follow familiar patterns. Although a knob’s operation generally needs no explaining, it is not an especially apt control tool for every job. In his classic 1959 text, The Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design, designer Henry Dreyfuss states that the input device needs to fit the nature of the input. He advocated one- or two-inch knobs for selecting amounts of things or quantities. Push buttons are better for choosing among discrete entities, such as park and reverse.
Even so, knobs in cars are taking over new functions. Ram is very proud of its dashboard shifter knob and highlights it in television ads. Car knobs are indirect evolutions of stereo knobs, and are, in part, based on the turn-and-push knobs devised by the late legendary designer David Lewis for Bang & Olufsen electronics. He told me once that he first devised these knobs for a 1960s audio project, inspired by the big knobs already on stereo equipment, but placed flush with the surface and equipped with a “dimple” for fingertip control. “That tactile feedback of turning and clicking is reassuring,” Lewis said. “The idea was to concentrate many functions in one button.”
The best interfaces, he said, are those based on years of familiarity. “We were building on established conventions that were known and understood, going back to the early telephone.” Considering that today’s handheld phones are often nothing but a screen, tomorrow’s knobs will have to be good if they are to survive.
Phil Patton
lunedì 4 settembre 2017
Why Does Every Car Infotainment System Look So Crappy?
Why Does Every Car Infotainment System Look So Crappy?
by Thorin Klosowski
User interface design is hard, but we've been getting better at it over the years to the point where even a thermostat is easy to use. Automakers, however, seem to have their heads in the sand, taking their design inspiration for their infotainment consoles from old Winamp skins instead of any type of modern interface.
I've been car shopping recently, which means I've sat in a variety of models new and old with a salesperson attempting to justify why their shitty infotainment system — the little dashboard that usually controls at least the radio and phone options — is better than the competition. Pair that up with a number of rentals over the years and I've seen about every car infotainment system around. With a couple very rare exceptions, they're universally horrible and feel like they're designed by someone who hasn't used a computer since 2000.
Most automakers have their own brand of infotainment systems and their bad design is more than skin deep. For example, Audi has MMI, an insane system that uses dials for menu navigation instead of a touchscreen unless you pay to upgrade it. Audi isn't the only one to eschew modern innovation either, BMW's iDrive and Mercedes's Comand both rely on dials for input as well. For years, Lexus has relied on what was basically a mouse for navigation which is as insanely stupid and challenging to use in real life as it sounds.
Most carmakers at least use touch screens, though their interfaces are cluttered and ugly. Ford has SYNC, Nissan has Connect, Toyota has Entune, Kia has UVO, Subaru has STARLINK, and so on and so on. As an example, here's Entune one of the worst options, which looks more at home on a laptop running Windows ME than it does in a brand new car:
On most of these infotainment systems, the menus seem devoid of logic, settings you need to access frequently are often buried beneath several submenus, and when there is a touch screen, they seem sluggish and clunky. There is a 100% you will need to look in the manual to change a very basic setting. Even something simple, like icon design, is the worst. The icons on Chevy's MyLink look like they were pulled from a cheap clipart collection:
On most of infotainment systems you'll find horrible icons that are probably included free with MS Word, weird fonts that don't suit the screen's size, and app integration for services that I'm pretty sure nobody actually uses. Like, who goes to movietickets.com and why would I use whatever Aha radio is? After sitting in a bunch of cars, I was actually longing for classic Winamp. Heck, cram this into a Toyota's center console and I'll buy it today:
I'm not going to even touch on how bad the navigation systems included with these things are, but rest assured, they're as horrible as you remember. For whatever reason, classic car GPS systems have been behind smartphone options for a long time, and even if it didn't take 35 minutes to type an address into one of those things, there's a very good chance that all you'll see on the screen is a pixelated blown-up mess of a map that's near impossible to read.
It's not all bad news, of course. Tesla at least seems to be on the right track, though the 17-inch touchscreen includes in their cars is so comically large that I imagine it's a huge distraction. Not that I'd know, since I can't even afford to sit in a Tesla let alone drive one. Volvo also seems on the right track with Sensus, which for some oddball reason is a vertical screen instead of horizontal, but is otherwise the minimally designed interface that you'd want in a four ton moving vehicle. It's easy to use, you can customise it to a small extent, and it's generally inoffensive. It's also brand spanking new though, and the previous Volvo systems weren't much to look at.
Then there's Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which feel like what happens when the carmakers give up on their own systems and just let someone else make it. Both options leverage the power of the phone you already use for music and navigation to power the car's infotainment options as well.
This comes with its own set of pros and cons. Android Auto and CarPlay are pretty much universally improvements to automaker's awful first-party infotainment options, but they still have some issues. Namely, apps have to actually support the two services, which means that you can't always access every app. For example, with CarPlay, you're locked into mostly first-party Apple apps, like Apple Maps. For iOS users, this is a huge downside, because even though Apple Maps has improved over the years, it's still not as good as Google Maps or Waze. Thankfully, you're not locked into Apple Music or Apple Podcasts at least, as Spotify, Pandora, Pocket Casts, Overcast, and others support CarPlay. Android Auto is a little better, but still pretty limited in the third-party options you have. With either option, there's a good chance at least one of the apps you use for audio won't work with it.
One minor quibble with both is that you'll still need to actually use your car's shitty infotainment system occasionally, as neither CarPlay nor Android Auto can handle any car-wide settings changes. Still, both are an improvement, and if nothing else is at least a sign that automakers have given up entirely on trying to force their awfully designed systems down our throats.
But still, not everyone has an iPhone or Android device, and not everyone wants to link up their phone to their car stereo in the first place. No matter what, these car infotainment systems and their stupid names will be a part of lives for years to come, so it'd be nice if they could at least look like they were designed in the last decade.
We don't need much here! Just don't nest menus deep inside other submenus, hand over your icon design to an actual designer instead of snagging some icon from Shutterstock, use large buttons that are easy to tap while driving, and spend a few extra bucks to give the whole thing a modern sheen so it doesn't look straight out of 1998.
Look, I know this is hard and expensive to do. I know that cars often only have ancient hardware in them that can't run much more than a text interface. I know this is near the bottom of the list of priorities in cars, but maybe it's time to move it up a bit.
Heck, you could even cut off access to any setting that could get me killed if I adjusted it wrong, then open up the entertainment portion Linux-style so I can install whatever I want on there. If nothing else, it'd be nice to at least have OS upgrade option so that I could at least have hope of change.
lifehacker.com.au
by Thorin Klosowski
 |
| from Cadillac's CUE |
User interface design is hard, but we've been getting better at it over the years to the point where even a thermostat is easy to use. Automakers, however, seem to have their heads in the sand, taking their design inspiration for their infotainment consoles from old Winamp skins instead of any type of modern interface.
I've been car shopping recently, which means I've sat in a variety of models new and old with a salesperson attempting to justify why their shitty infotainment system — the little dashboard that usually controls at least the radio and phone options — is better than the competition. Pair that up with a number of rentals over the years and I've seen about every car infotainment system around. With a couple very rare exceptions, they're universally horrible and feel like they're designed by someone who hasn't used a computer since 2000.
Most automakers have their own brand of infotainment systems and their bad design is more than skin deep. For example, Audi has MMI, an insane system that uses dials for menu navigation instead of a touchscreen unless you pay to upgrade it. Audi isn't the only one to eschew modern innovation either, BMW's iDrive and Mercedes's Comand both rely on dials for input as well. For years, Lexus has relied on what was basically a mouse for navigation which is as insanely stupid and challenging to use in real life as it sounds.
Most carmakers at least use touch screens, though their interfaces are cluttered and ugly. Ford has SYNC, Nissan has Connect, Toyota has Entune, Kia has UVO, Subaru has STARLINK, and so on and so on. As an example, here's Entune one of the worst options, which looks more at home on a laptop running Windows ME than it does in a brand new car:
On most of these infotainment systems, the menus seem devoid of logic, settings you need to access frequently are often buried beneath several submenus, and when there is a touch screen, they seem sluggish and clunky. There is a 100% you will need to look in the manual to change a very basic setting. Even something simple, like icon design, is the worst. The icons on Chevy's MyLink look like they were pulled from a cheap clipart collection:
On most of infotainment systems you'll find horrible icons that are probably included free with MS Word, weird fonts that don't suit the screen's size, and app integration for services that I'm pretty sure nobody actually uses. Like, who goes to movietickets.com and why would I use whatever Aha radio is? After sitting in a bunch of cars, I was actually longing for classic Winamp. Heck, cram this into a Toyota's center console and I'll buy it today:
I'm not going to even touch on how bad the navigation systems included with these things are, but rest assured, they're as horrible as you remember. For whatever reason, classic car GPS systems have been behind smartphone options for a long time, and even if it didn't take 35 minutes to type an address into one of those things, there's a very good chance that all you'll see on the screen is a pixelated blown-up mess of a map that's near impossible to read.
It's not all bad news, of course. Tesla at least seems to be on the right track, though the 17-inch touchscreen includes in their cars is so comically large that I imagine it's a huge distraction. Not that I'd know, since I can't even afford to sit in a Tesla let alone drive one. Volvo also seems on the right track with Sensus, which for some oddball reason is a vertical screen instead of horizontal, but is otherwise the minimally designed interface that you'd want in a four ton moving vehicle. It's easy to use, you can customise it to a small extent, and it's generally inoffensive. It's also brand spanking new though, and the previous Volvo systems weren't much to look at.
Then there's Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which feel like what happens when the carmakers give up on their own systems and just let someone else make it. Both options leverage the power of the phone you already use for music and navigation to power the car's infotainment options as well.
This comes with its own set of pros and cons. Android Auto and CarPlay are pretty much universally improvements to automaker's awful first-party infotainment options, but they still have some issues. Namely, apps have to actually support the two services, which means that you can't always access every app. For example, with CarPlay, you're locked into mostly first-party Apple apps, like Apple Maps. For iOS users, this is a huge downside, because even though Apple Maps has improved over the years, it's still not as good as Google Maps or Waze. Thankfully, you're not locked into Apple Music or Apple Podcasts at least, as Spotify, Pandora, Pocket Casts, Overcast, and others support CarPlay. Android Auto is a little better, but still pretty limited in the third-party options you have. With either option, there's a good chance at least one of the apps you use for audio won't work with it.
One minor quibble with both is that you'll still need to actually use your car's shitty infotainment system occasionally, as neither CarPlay nor Android Auto can handle any car-wide settings changes. Still, both are an improvement, and if nothing else is at least a sign that automakers have given up entirely on trying to force their awfully designed systems down our throats.
But still, not everyone has an iPhone or Android device, and not everyone wants to link up their phone to their car stereo in the first place. No matter what, these car infotainment systems and their stupid names will be a part of lives for years to come, so it'd be nice if they could at least look like they were designed in the last decade.
We don't need much here! Just don't nest menus deep inside other submenus, hand over your icon design to an actual designer instead of snagging some icon from Shutterstock, use large buttons that are easy to tap while driving, and spend a few extra bucks to give the whole thing a modern sheen so it doesn't look straight out of 1998.
Look, I know this is hard and expensive to do. I know that cars often only have ancient hardware in them that can't run much more than a text interface. I know this is near the bottom of the list of priorities in cars, but maybe it's time to move it up a bit.
Heck, you could even cut off access to any setting that could get me killed if I adjusted it wrong, then open up the entertainment portion Linux-style so I can install whatever I want on there. If nothing else, it'd be nice to at least have OS upgrade option so that I could at least have hope of change.
lifehacker.com.au
lunedì 28 agosto 2017
The 2017 Hyundai Elantra Sport: when physical buttons make more sense than a touchscreen
The 2017 Hyundai Elantra Sport: when physical buttons make more sense than a touchscreen
by Ashley Carman @ashleyrcarman
Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Cars have become expensive, rolling gadgets that are full of screens, speakers, and sensors — but are they actually good gadgets? In our new series, ScreenDrive, we'll review cars just like any other device, starting with the basics of what they’re like to use.
I pulled up to my friend Colin’s apartment in Queens, New York two weeks ago in a silver 2017 Hyundai Elantra Sport. “Damn girl,” I think were his words. The shiny metallic exterior, the leather seats, the two displays: this car is sharp. And considering we usually meet at a corner on our block and walk to the subway together, he really couldn’t complain.
The affordable Elantra Sport has a $21,650 base price and can be upgraded with additional tech and gadgets. My Sport included two displays: an eight-inch, high-resolution, full color touchscreen and a 3.5-inch TFT (thin film transistor) monochromatic display on the dash. Throughout my weekend with Colin and the Elantra, the screens proved helpful for getting around and controlling music, but ultimately, the car’s physical buttons became my go-to. Sometimes, even when you have the option to tech, the old way of interaction just makes more sense.
My core problem with the Elantra isn’t its hardware. The displays look fine, and actually, I grew to love the smaller, middle dash display, which became my default reference point when looking for directions. It clearly laid out my next step and other essential stats, like trip mileage and tire pressure. No, the Elantra’s biggest issue is Hyundai’s confusing software. The Elantra runs Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, or Hyundai’s proprietary software. I spent my driving time with Hyundai’s software, and found that the company’s user interface truly makes no sense.
The space to enter an address, for instance, sits in the right-hand corner of the display and blends into the map. Even after entering multiple addresses, I struggled to remember where that bar was and how to access it. Other poor UI decisions include listing directions from the bottom up, so my next direction populated the bottom of a list as opposed to the top, which again, makes no sense. Maybe I have an odd way of comprehending directions?
More than anything else, I continuously struggled to return to the main menu to access different apps. Hence, the physical buttons. When I was already in an app and wanted to get back to music, for instance, I didn’t always remember how to get there. This shouldn’t ever be a question. While yes, a virtual back button exists, it didn’t stick out as the proper way to navigate. I instead ended up resorting to the physical buttons that clearly stated “media” and “map.” These never failed me, made sense to use, and didn’t require scrolling through a page of apps while operating a vehicle. However, other than the strange UI decisions, the software itself functioned. It got me where I needed to go and generally worked well. I wish I could have natively loaded Google Maps on the car’s main display, but I have an iPhone and can’t use it through CarPlay. That’s not Hyundai’s fault.
Hyundai knew how to get me where I wanted to go but its maps lagged a bit if I strayed from the chosen route. During one drive, the navigation redirected me when I crossed through a parking lot but still took the initial street it suggested. Errors are bound to happen but a slow refresh time is a killer. I missed exits and opportunities to get back on track while the car was thinking. But hey, at least I still got to my destination.
The Elantra also struggled a bit with voice commands, like when I tried to navigate to Mister HotPot in Flushing, New York at 33-42 39th Avenue. The Hyundai couldn’t handle that hyphen. Good luck using voice control in cities plagued by hyphenated addresses. Siri wasn’t any help, either. Every voice-controlled gadget struggles with complicated phrases. Addresses are long, so I don’t fault Hyundai necessarily, but it’s just one more pain point. I’ve learned to be patient after spending hours playing around with different devices, but for drivers like my friend Colin, who don’t play with new tech every day, it’s infuriating to deal with glitchy voice control.
Now, with that all in mind, the driving experience itself was fabulous. It was smooth, and I kind of felt like I was floating. This makes it easy to speed, so I had to set my cruise control for small towns where the limit drops to 30 mph. I guess my tip would be maybe don’t take your Sport through small towns, or rather, don’t do what I did.
Generally, I enjoyed driving the Elantra and was sad to give it back. Its microphone worked well during phone calls, its navigation got me where I wanted to go, and it was an easy ride. I only wish Hyundai would work on its UI and more thoroughly consider how people interact with its displays. If you’re looking into a package for the Sport, I don’t think you’ll need the premium one for $2,400 to make the car worthwhile. However, for the SE, I would suggest the tech package for $1,300, solely because that 3.5-inch dash display was a godsend. Ultimately, as long you have those physical buttons installed, you’re going to be just fine controlling the Elantra.
The Verge
by Ashley Carman @ashleyrcarman
Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Cars have become expensive, rolling gadgets that are full of screens, speakers, and sensors — but are they actually good gadgets? In our new series, ScreenDrive, we'll review cars just like any other device, starting with the basics of what they’re like to use.
I pulled up to my friend Colin’s apartment in Queens, New York two weeks ago in a silver 2017 Hyundai Elantra Sport. “Damn girl,” I think were his words. The shiny metallic exterior, the leather seats, the two displays: this car is sharp. And considering we usually meet at a corner on our block and walk to the subway together, he really couldn’t complain.
The affordable Elantra Sport has a $21,650 base price and can be upgraded with additional tech and gadgets. My Sport included two displays: an eight-inch, high-resolution, full color touchscreen and a 3.5-inch TFT (thin film transistor) monochromatic display on the dash. Throughout my weekend with Colin and the Elantra, the screens proved helpful for getting around and controlling music, but ultimately, the car’s physical buttons became my go-to. Sometimes, even when you have the option to tech, the old way of interaction just makes more sense.
My core problem with the Elantra isn’t its hardware. The displays look fine, and actually, I grew to love the smaller, middle dash display, which became my default reference point when looking for directions. It clearly laid out my next step and other essential stats, like trip mileage and tire pressure. No, the Elantra’s biggest issue is Hyundai’s confusing software. The Elantra runs Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, or Hyundai’s proprietary software. I spent my driving time with Hyundai’s software, and found that the company’s user interface truly makes no sense.
The space to enter an address, for instance, sits in the right-hand corner of the display and blends into the map. Even after entering multiple addresses, I struggled to remember where that bar was and how to access it. Other poor UI decisions include listing directions from the bottom up, so my next direction populated the bottom of a list as opposed to the top, which again, makes no sense. Maybe I have an odd way of comprehending directions?
More than anything else, I continuously struggled to return to the main menu to access different apps. Hence, the physical buttons. When I was already in an app and wanted to get back to music, for instance, I didn’t always remember how to get there. This shouldn’t ever be a question. While yes, a virtual back button exists, it didn’t stick out as the proper way to navigate. I instead ended up resorting to the physical buttons that clearly stated “media” and “map.” These never failed me, made sense to use, and didn’t require scrolling through a page of apps while operating a vehicle. However, other than the strange UI decisions, the software itself functioned. It got me where I needed to go and generally worked well. I wish I could have natively loaded Google Maps on the car’s main display, but I have an iPhone and can’t use it through CarPlay. That’s not Hyundai’s fault.
Hyundai knew how to get me where I wanted to go but its maps lagged a bit if I strayed from the chosen route. During one drive, the navigation redirected me when I crossed through a parking lot but still took the initial street it suggested. Errors are bound to happen but a slow refresh time is a killer. I missed exits and opportunities to get back on track while the car was thinking. But hey, at least I still got to my destination.
The Elantra also struggled a bit with voice commands, like when I tried to navigate to Mister HotPot in Flushing, New York at 33-42 39th Avenue. The Hyundai couldn’t handle that hyphen. Good luck using voice control in cities plagued by hyphenated addresses. Siri wasn’t any help, either. Every voice-controlled gadget struggles with complicated phrases. Addresses are long, so I don’t fault Hyundai necessarily, but it’s just one more pain point. I’ve learned to be patient after spending hours playing around with different devices, but for drivers like my friend Colin, who don’t play with new tech every day, it’s infuriating to deal with glitchy voice control.
Now, with that all in mind, the driving experience itself was fabulous. It was smooth, and I kind of felt like I was floating. This makes it easy to speed, so I had to set my cruise control for small towns where the limit drops to 30 mph. I guess my tip would be maybe don’t take your Sport through small towns, or rather, don’t do what I did.
Generally, I enjoyed driving the Elantra and was sad to give it back. Its microphone worked well during phone calls, its navigation got me where I wanted to go, and it was an easy ride. I only wish Hyundai would work on its UI and more thoroughly consider how people interact with its displays. If you’re looking into a package for the Sport, I don’t think you’ll need the premium one for $2,400 to make the car worthwhile. However, for the SE, I would suggest the tech package for $1,300, solely because that 3.5-inch dash display was a godsend. Ultimately, as long you have those physical buttons installed, you’re going to be just fine controlling the Elantra.
The Verge
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