Comment by Morromist
3 hours ago
I wonder if there's a blog or something that tells the story of how good car design went off the rails. I'm pretty sure that there was a culture of design that gradually worked out what a great car is like until somewhere in the 2010s - and then got flushed down the toilet, but I don't know anything about it.
I can see how this might have happened. Tessla was a big deal and had those horrible door handles and companies probably wanted to look innovative rather than have good working designs. And physical buttons are more expensive to put in and don't look nearly as futuristic. I heard an add for a car a few days ago on NPR that was literally just "it has 30+ inches of screens!"
But perhaps the story is more about consumers who just want new, exciting things like weird door handles and 30 inches of screens, who cares what they do, and the car companies just threw up their hands and gave them what they wanted? I don't know. I would love to know the full story. I'm sure its documented somewhere.
I blame Musk. Maybe I'm way off base, but most of these trends were first highly visible in Tesla products. They may not have created each dumb UX decision, but certainly were one of the first to put them all into a single car.
I remember the first time I tried to go to lunch in a friend's Tesla. I couldn't get in or out of the stupid thing without instructions. And getting in would be next to impossible for somebody with bad rheumatoid arthritis and bad fingers - the "push with thumb, while pulling with fingers" is awkward at best.
> But perhaps the story is more about consumers who just want new, exciting things like weird door handles and 30 inches of screens
We should never underestimate people's weird desires but this is mostly not it IMO. There was a new generation that felt the need to rebel against old established stuff and of course is now painfully rediscovering why this stuff was established in the first place.
Infuriating to watch, mind you. But also predictable, like watching bots play StarCraft against each other.