<story><title>The Tesla Semi cab from the practical POV of someone who drives trucks</title><url>https://twitter.com/torynski/status/1600968583055826944</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>a4isms</author><text>I am not a trucker, so I can&amp;#x27;t comment on the veracity of TFA&amp;#x27;s claims. But this rant reminds me of many similar things I&amp;#x27;ve read about products that were designed by people only had superficial experience with the industry they are trying to disrupt.&lt;p&gt;A lot of the things that matter aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily obvious to the designer or engineer who knows little about the nuts and bolts of every field. The usual remedy is to either follow a design process that incorporates user viewpoints, or to hire people with direct experience in the field.&lt;p&gt;Take the &amp;quot;wiping the mirrors&amp;quot; complaint. One design makes it easy to lean out the window and wipe the mirror by hand. Another design might make the mirrors retractible.&lt;p&gt;If I read a complain that retracting the mirrors was unnecessary complexity, I would think &amp;quot;Hmm, maybe, but then again it&amp;#x27;s a tradeoff because the narrow cab is more aero and increases range.&amp;quot; I&amp;#x27;d have a feeling that the designers knew this was an important use case, but this person complaining doesn&amp;#x27;t like their solution.&lt;p&gt;But it worries me that a number of use cases that seem quite obviously common even to a layperson... Are neglected outright. I don&amp;#x27;t get the impression that Tesla knew about all this and decided not to do anything about them, I get the impression that this is a company who thinks &amp;quot;design&amp;quot; is all about styling, and not about usability.&lt;p&gt;Somebody resurrect Steve Jobs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Eji1700</author><text>To me, this point alone continues to highlight that musk is just focusing on looks instead of function-&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Tablets. I drove a modern Mercedes truck with tablets and it&amp;#x27;s pin in the arse. Tablets are simply not designed for use in moving vehicles. You need a physical button, so you can reach for it even without taking your eyes off the road and feel it. (10)&lt;p&gt;This is a KNOWN issue.  There&amp;#x27;s very very little upside to any sort of touchscreen in a moving vehicle.  And while in normal cars they move units because features over functionality is acceptable, trucks aren&amp;#x27;t status symbols first.  They do, at the end of the day, have to do the job they&amp;#x27;re designed for efficiently, and things like this are clearly just &amp;quot;trendy&amp;quot; not practical.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Tesla Semi cab from the practical POV of someone who drives trucks</title><url>https://twitter.com/torynski/status/1600968583055826944</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>a4isms</author><text>I am not a trucker, so I can&amp;#x27;t comment on the veracity of TFA&amp;#x27;s claims. But this rant reminds me of many similar things I&amp;#x27;ve read about products that were designed by people only had superficial experience with the industry they are trying to disrupt.&lt;p&gt;A lot of the things that matter aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily obvious to the designer or engineer who knows little about the nuts and bolts of every field. The usual remedy is to either follow a design process that incorporates user viewpoints, or to hire people with direct experience in the field.&lt;p&gt;Take the &amp;quot;wiping the mirrors&amp;quot; complaint. One design makes it easy to lean out the window and wipe the mirror by hand. Another design might make the mirrors retractible.&lt;p&gt;If I read a complain that retracting the mirrors was unnecessary complexity, I would think &amp;quot;Hmm, maybe, but then again it&amp;#x27;s a tradeoff because the narrow cab is more aero and increases range.&amp;quot; I&amp;#x27;d have a feeling that the designers knew this was an important use case, but this person complaining doesn&amp;#x27;t like their solution.&lt;p&gt;But it worries me that a number of use cases that seem quite obviously common even to a layperson... Are neglected outright. I don&amp;#x27;t get the impression that Tesla knew about all this and decided not to do anything about them, I get the impression that this is a company who thinks &amp;quot;design&amp;quot; is all about styling, and not about usability.&lt;p&gt;Somebody resurrect Steve Jobs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spaceman_2020</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not a designer but one principle I&amp;#x27;ve adopted in most things I purchase is to minimize complexity. My goal is always to optimize for &amp;quot;least willpower consumed&amp;quot;. Because I know that if its not easy to do, I&amp;#x27;ll just skip it after a long day.&lt;p&gt;If I was making something for professionals who might use the tool for long, tiring hours, I&amp;#x27;d probably want to give them the least bit of complexity possible. At the end of an 8 hour shift, how many truckers will have the energy (or rather, spare willpower) to press a button, wait for the mirrors to retract, clean it, and press the button to get it back into its original position? Compare that to the much simpler single-step current process (grab cloth, clean mirror).&lt;p&gt;The fewer clicks, the fewer steps, the fewer movements something takes, usually, the better.</text></comment>