A Digital Designer's POV on V11

Long time lurker, first time posting here! I've had a Model 3 since May '18, and I've been a professional Designer (sometimes called UI/UX Designer and Product Designer) for several years now. I didn't expect Tesla to take so many basic steps back in driver usability, nor did I expect that as we approach April, Tesla hasn't reverted more changes.

From the POV of design, looking at usability, interaction, and accessible design, I wrote a case study detailing why V11 is a step back for basic usability in a Tesla.
(Btw, the prose and context there is for a very general audience and the design community vs terminology and context all of us here are highly familiar with)

TL;DR There’s three primary issues with V11’s design:​

1. Burying numerous, previously glanceable and reachable items into menus such as “Quick” Controls requiring extra taps, and removing heated seats and defrost controls from the bottom bar
2. Ergonomics, or lack thereof, for the new alerts and gestures that are blocked by the steering wheel
3. Homogenized UI from previously distinguished buttons/actions, making for a greater cognitive load from the driver when needing to distinguish between a grid of buttons

I get the sense that there have been two different design leaders between V9 and V11. There's clear evidence of the lack of Information Architecture weighting as so many things like charging and tire pressure monitoring were buried in the Controls menu despite having differing importance in usage. That means Tesla's digital design team chose form over function with a lot of V11 choices.

Personally, the heated seat and media scrubbing are my two daily annoyances.

Semi-TL;DR:​

I have a Twitter thread with visual examples of the more prominent V11 design issues.

Here's to hoping Tesla hears us, and improves the design - and hopefully maturing their approach to digital design! It doesn't mean they still can't shake up in-car digital experiences as they have for 10 years. But to move forward now with more thoughtfulness on usability for a much, much larger and diverse ownership base.

 

[electrons4u]

Interesting read but apples and oranges as he doesn't address this use case at all. I did find a questionable argument or so in the paper.

I am 99.99% sure you did not read the paper all the way through. It's quite technical, but the good news is you don't have to. All you have to do is observe the famous Figure 9 from his paper that has been reproduced in many other places. Here it is:

 

[electrons4u]

The main reason I switched to MS LR+ was the 402 miles range (~300 real miles, 250 in the mountain in the winter). I do not believe in one EV for the city and one ICE/hybrid for the road trips (are 200m trips really road trips?!).

Yep, range is one big reason why I picked the M3 LR AWD, because it has the second highest range of any Tesla at the moment (358 advertised, not sure how many real miles, and in winter it's a LOT less). I came close to buying something like a Fiat 500e, but with an 85-mile range and a 4-hour recharge time, long trips are not practical, so I would have had to keep my ICE car. I wanted 1 car to do it all, and nobody else (yet) has anything close to Tesla's Supercharger network, so Tesla got my $$. My ICE car sold last Saturday, so now I'm ICE free, drinking my iced tea.

 

[spokey]

I give but with one last comment. Best I can tell that figure isn't a comparison of a pure EV vs an H/EV. And I don't doubt the EV is more efficient. It's the range and infrastructure charging that is the problem. As has been mentioned, hybrids are complex but perhaps compromise in the interim is needed.

 

[Boza]

I give but with one last comment. Best I can tell that figure isn't a comparison of a pure EV vs an H/EV. And I don't doubt the EV is more efficient. It's the range and infrastructure charging that is the problem. As has been mentioned, hybrids are complex but perhaps compromise in the interim is needed.

“Pure EV” is maybe the trolley bus Although, even they have battery backups

BEV and HEV are equally efficient. I am not sure if LiPo battery is more efficient than fuel cell (energy in/energy out) but the H2 infrastructure is way more complex than the battery one, even though we need some special materials in both cases. There was a lot of talk that we could use the existing dino juice infrastructure. It turned out that neither the tanks can hold H2 nor the dispensing system could work. Essentially, one has to replace the components that make a gas station. With the chargers we are closer to the existing infrastructure, especially with L2 chargers.

 

[father_of_6]

I give but with one last comment. Best I can tell that figure isn't a comparison of a pure EV vs an H/EV. And I don't doubt the EV is more efficient. It's the range and infrastructure charging that is the problem. As has been mentioned, hybrids are complex but perhaps compromise in the interim is needed.

But... this is already a solved problem. Electric charging stations exist, and it works. Are we to replace has stations with hydrogen stations instead? That'd be *much* worse. BEV wins.

90ish percent of driving is local commuting (charge at home), and DC fast charging for the rest.

 

[electrons4u]

Best I can tell that figure isn't a comparison of a pure EV vs an H/EV.

Um, yes, that's exactly what the figure compares: the 2 types of H/EV's on the left compared to pure BEV on the right. That is, he compares hydrogen fuel cell cars on the left, but splits it into efficiency based on the 2 ways you can produce the hydrogen for the fuel cell. There is no hydrogen fuel cell car without hydrogen or electricity. I suggest reading some of Bossel's paper and skip over all the math. He makes statements and conclusions in plain English that non-engineers can understand. You can do it!

 

[Transformer]

In today's news: Hydrogen 11 times worse than CO2 for climate, says new report.

In short: Somewhere between 1% - 10% of hydrogen leaks, and that acts like a greenhouse gas because (1) it reacts with the same tropospheric oxidants that "clean up" methane emissions, and (2) it increases the upper atmosphere concentration of water vapor. It's still a big improvement over fossil fuel.

Battery tech has outpaced hydrogen tech in many applications.