Bigger buttons?

[Master Chief]

They say that size doesn't matter, but when you are driving down the road and you want to press the PLAY icon to start your favorite podcast or whatever you have up on your mobile device, I find that the icon (the right pointing black arrowhead) is often too small to hit with my finger.

When the car is moving, even with Tesla's superb suspension, there is enough vibration that "landing in the black" is a bit of a challenge. It also requires you to take your eyes off of the road for a bit.

I know this is a trivial thing, but would it hurt to make the play button a bit bigger?

(Yes, I know that I can press the left scroll button in to start the play, but it doesn't diminish the fact that the icons on the screen could be a little bigger.)

 

[bob_p]

Have you tried using a voice command?

 

[Master Chief]

Have you tried using a voice command?

Don't get me started with Voice Commands. Absolutely nothing works except for Navigate. I even have the list of commands and none work. I don't understand why, either.

 

[bob_p]

While there are some nice features of the Tesla user interface, it appears to be primarily designed for visual aesthetics and not usability.

It's easy to quantify the "ease of use" of the user interface by measuring how quickly users can perform typical functions - in the case of Tesla vehicles, operations performed by the driver while the vehicle is in motion.

If Tesla performed those measurements, they would quickly determine some frequently used operations are more difficult than they need to be. Some of the user interface "improvements" Tesla implemented in major releases were clearly a step backward (such as removing the station slider for XM radio) - but Tesla has done little to address those.

Instead, when the user interface is improved in a release, the "new" UI looks better, even if it isn't as easy to use.

Plus, rather than getting user feedback on improvements, it appears there is an audience of one providing input on the improvements - what Musk wants to see, and not necessarily what users need.

It's been rare that Tesla has addressed negative user feedback on poor decisions on improvements. One example I can recall is when they removed the first letter scroll bar from long lists in the media player - that was obviously such a bad decision, that they quickly put that feature back in.

You can submit a bug report about the button issue. I agree that Tesla could do more to make the interface easier to use, especially when controlled by the driver while the vehicle is in motion. This is not only an "ease of use" issue, it is also a safety issue, because the harder the UI is to use, the less attention the driver is paying to driving...

 

[Master Chief]

I was sitting at the Supercharger the other day and I pressed the Radio icon and then another (forget what it was) and suddenly I had a numeric keypad to punch in the SiriusXM channel number. As luck would have it, the SXM radio wasn't working at that moment, so I couldn't test whether it actually worked. I do remember that on the left side of the screen in a vertical orientation was FM, SiriusXM and a couple more audio options. The keypad wasn't an option for FM.

Bottom line, Tesla, with their ability to make immediate changes to the UI are in a perfect spot to help update their entire system... much easier than in my wife's Toyota RAV4 hybrid. That UI is quite funky, I still cannot get Google maps to work, Apple play is chunky and you have to go to the dealership to get an update. At least it has AM and knobs .

 

[bob_p]

For MCU1 owners purchasing the Infotainment Upgrade, Tesla has fixed all of the radio-related UI problems by eliminating the radio completely...