<story><title>A UX designer walks into a Tesla Bar</title><url>https://jenson.org/tesla/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>frosted-flakes</author><text>Actually, I&amp;#x27;ve seen that some cars will rapidly flash the brake lights a few times if the brakes are applied hard. I don&amp;#x27;t know off the top of my head which cars though.</text></item><item><author>Syonyk</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s actually one complaint I have about the 1st gen Chevy Volt - the hazards switch is a physical button... on the right side of the center console, over by the passenger.  It&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; a location that is either rapid to find if you don&amp;#x27;t know where it is, or particularly rapid to hit when you need them - it&amp;#x27;s a substantial span reach, unsupported, on a smaller button than I think reasonable.  Though, admittedly, I miss the ones on the top of the steering column.  That was standard enough for a long time that I still look for the toggle there.&lt;p&gt;I use them at least a few times a year, though far less than I used to when I was on the interstate a lot more.  Any time traffic rapidly drops more than about 20mph, I light up my hazards to let following traffic know, &amp;quot;Yes, you see brake lights, no, they&amp;#x27;re not just people scrubbing a few miles an hour off - &lt;i&gt;get on your brakes now!&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;  Probably a habit I picked up from truckers, a lot of them do this for the very understandable reason that a big rig doesn&amp;#x27;t stop on a dime, and even if they will, you&amp;#x27;re likely to unstack your cargo in the process.&lt;p&gt;Super infrequently used compared to other buttons, but also not something I really have the time go sorting through menus for when I need it.  And neither do I trust the car&amp;#x27;s automatic systems to turn them on for me.&lt;p&gt;Though, if I could dream, we&amp;#x27;d use LED brake lights to encode braking intensity somehow.  The car knows if I&amp;#x27;m barely touching the pedal to cancel cruise control and light up the brakes, or if I&amp;#x27;ve just mashed them to the ABS actuation point, but the brake lights don&amp;#x27;t encode &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; of this useful info.  You couldn&amp;#x27;t rely on it for car behavior (trivial to spoof, and get rid of tailgaters), but it would be an additional useful input for driving - &amp;quot;Woah, hey, that car in front of you just nearly locked up their wheels, radar data agrees, slow down!&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>ptaipale</author><text>Indeed. What is the largest button I have in my Renault&amp;#x27;s dash? It&amp;#x27;s the triangle-shaped hazard light switch. Do I ever use it? I hope not. Do I want it to be that big? Yes, I do.</text></item><item><author>NikolaNovak</author><text>Tricky thing about &amp;quot;data driven&amp;quot; &amp;#x2F; behaviour observation is:&lt;p&gt;App&amp;#x2F;icon X may be the most COMMONLY used one.&lt;p&gt;But it doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily make it the most IMPORTANT one, the one I need to reach in a hurry &amp;#x2F; most easily.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know how to capture, via automated telemetry, &amp;quot;this occasional button I REALLY REALLY need&amp;quot;... so it&amp;#x27;s just hubris then.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m an outsider, I&amp;#x27;ve only entered Tesla&amp;#x27;s as opposed to driven them, but the UX is such a &lt;i&gt;massive&lt;/i&gt; deal-breaker for this old grouch, it&amp;#x27;s unbelievable. I wish it weren&amp;#x27;t so but c&amp;#x27;est la vie.</text></item><item><author>pcurve</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m sure the decision was &amp;quot;data driven&amp;quot; based on real life usage.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a bit disturbing they&amp;#x27;re able to make such drastic level of changes without heads up.&lt;p&gt;Can you imagine, taking your Honda Accord in for an oil change, and you find out that dealer completely re-arranged your center console?&lt;p&gt;I wish more features tied to safety should be available via physical switches.  Even Model 3 has a physical hazard light switch.</text></item><item><author>mft_</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m usually a defender of the single screen on the Model 3&amp;#x2F;Y, but on this, the author is right: the new UI (v11) is terrible compared to the previous one (v10).&lt;p&gt;Not only does it hide commonly-used safety-relevant functions behind extra taps in sub-menus (as detailed), it was apparently done to free up space to offer a &amp;#x27;dock&amp;#x27; of app buttons - three permanant and three &amp;#x27;recently used&amp;#x27;.  I struggled to choose three apps I needed enough to fill the permanant spaces - and certainly don&amp;#x27;t need quick access (when I&amp;#x27;m driving!) to Netflix, or games, or whatever is popping up in &amp;#x27;recently used&amp;#x27; today.  I &lt;i&gt;would&lt;/i&gt; like the driver profile menu to be quickly available, but alas that&amp;#x27;s been hidden too.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a total cluster-f*ck that makes no logical sense when considering the need of drivers, and I hope they listen and revert at least this aspect of the UI.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ptaipale</author><text>This is common in newer cars in Europe - if you brake so hard that ABS is activated, the brake lights will flash &amp;#x2F; pulse.&lt;p&gt;I suppose regulations do not allow it in the U.S. but at least here it can be programmed on&amp;#x2F;off via service terminals.&lt;p&gt;Random example from YouTube:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=dJk-rJpgF1o&amp;amp;t=108s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=dJk-rJpgF1o&amp;amp;t=108s&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>A UX designer walks into a Tesla Bar</title><url>https://jenson.org/tesla/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>frosted-flakes</author><text>Actually, I&amp;#x27;ve seen that some cars will rapidly flash the brake lights a few times if the brakes are applied hard. I don&amp;#x27;t know off the top of my head which cars though.</text></item><item><author>Syonyk</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s actually one complaint I have about the 1st gen Chevy Volt - the hazards switch is a physical button... on the right side of the center console, over by the passenger.  It&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; a location that is either rapid to find if you don&amp;#x27;t know where it is, or particularly rapid to hit when you need them - it&amp;#x27;s a substantial span reach, unsupported, on a smaller button than I think reasonable.  Though, admittedly, I miss the ones on the top of the steering column.  That was standard enough for a long time that I still look for the toggle there.&lt;p&gt;I use them at least a few times a year, though far less than I used to when I was on the interstate a lot more.  Any time traffic rapidly drops more than about 20mph, I light up my hazards to let following traffic know, &amp;quot;Yes, you see brake lights, no, they&amp;#x27;re not just people scrubbing a few miles an hour off - &lt;i&gt;get on your brakes now!&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;  Probably a habit I picked up from truckers, a lot of them do this for the very understandable reason that a big rig doesn&amp;#x27;t stop on a dime, and even if they will, you&amp;#x27;re likely to unstack your cargo in the process.&lt;p&gt;Super infrequently used compared to other buttons, but also not something I really have the time go sorting through menus for when I need it.  And neither do I trust the car&amp;#x27;s automatic systems to turn them on for me.&lt;p&gt;Though, if I could dream, we&amp;#x27;d use LED brake lights to encode braking intensity somehow.  The car knows if I&amp;#x27;m barely touching the pedal to cancel cruise control and light up the brakes, or if I&amp;#x27;ve just mashed them to the ABS actuation point, but the brake lights don&amp;#x27;t encode &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; of this useful info.  You couldn&amp;#x27;t rely on it for car behavior (trivial to spoof, and get rid of tailgaters), but it would be an additional useful input for driving - &amp;quot;Woah, hey, that car in front of you just nearly locked up their wheels, radar data agrees, slow down!&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>ptaipale</author><text>Indeed. What is the largest button I have in my Renault&amp;#x27;s dash? It&amp;#x27;s the triangle-shaped hazard light switch. Do I ever use it? I hope not. Do I want it to be that big? Yes, I do.</text></item><item><author>NikolaNovak</author><text>Tricky thing about &amp;quot;data driven&amp;quot; &amp;#x2F; behaviour observation is:&lt;p&gt;App&amp;#x2F;icon X may be the most COMMONLY used one.&lt;p&gt;But it doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily make it the most IMPORTANT one, the one I need to reach in a hurry &amp;#x2F; most easily.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know how to capture, via automated telemetry, &amp;quot;this occasional button I REALLY REALLY need&amp;quot;... so it&amp;#x27;s just hubris then.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m an outsider, I&amp;#x27;ve only entered Tesla&amp;#x27;s as opposed to driven them, but the UX is such a &lt;i&gt;massive&lt;/i&gt; deal-breaker for this old grouch, it&amp;#x27;s unbelievable. I wish it weren&amp;#x27;t so but c&amp;#x27;est la vie.</text></item><item><author>pcurve</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m sure the decision was &amp;quot;data driven&amp;quot; based on real life usage.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a bit disturbing they&amp;#x27;re able to make such drastic level of changes without heads up.&lt;p&gt;Can you imagine, taking your Honda Accord in for an oil change, and you find out that dealer completely re-arranged your center console?&lt;p&gt;I wish more features tied to safety should be available via physical switches.  Even Model 3 has a physical hazard light switch.</text></item><item><author>mft_</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m usually a defender of the single screen on the Model 3&amp;#x2F;Y, but on this, the author is right: the new UI (v11) is terrible compared to the previous one (v10).&lt;p&gt;Not only does it hide commonly-used safety-relevant functions behind extra taps in sub-menus (as detailed), it was apparently done to free up space to offer a &amp;#x27;dock&amp;#x27; of app buttons - three permanant and three &amp;#x27;recently used&amp;#x27;.  I struggled to choose three apps I needed enough to fill the permanant spaces - and certainly don&amp;#x27;t need quick access (when I&amp;#x27;m driving!) to Netflix, or games, or whatever is popping up in &amp;#x27;recently used&amp;#x27; today.  I &lt;i&gt;would&lt;/i&gt; like the driver profile menu to be quickly available, but alas that&amp;#x27;s been hidden too.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a total cluster-f*ck that makes no logical sense when considering the need of drivers, and I hope they listen and revert at least this aspect of the UI.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Syonyk</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve mostly installed them on motorcycles over the years.  The combination of a modulator&amp;#x2F;flasher (several pulses and then solid) and a bright LED tail light makes a HUGE difference in how cars behind you follow - I converted several motorcycles at different points in time and observed the rather significantly increased following distance on each one as I converted them.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know the legality of them, but nobody ever complained on the motorcycles.</text></comment>