Minor bug in drivers screen; unable to pause media?

[sp4rk]

Before I potentially waste TM's time reporting a minor bug, thought I'd run this by everyone.

FW 4.4

Ok, using the right thumbwheel on steering wheel. Press it IN so can select which app appears in right side of screen.

Select Media.

Play a song from USB stick. Then go to pause it. Tap wheel. Normally (on left wheel) this pauses and replays the song. But with right wheel this activates the "choice" menu ... to operate Sun Roof, Climate control etc. so you cannot pause music (and maybe other things do not work?)

Can someone else reproduce this?

 

[steve841]

I dont believe thats a bug ....

The left side is devoted to media (as I understand it) ... So that the right side would always bring up the choice menu.

I do admit that I have not attempted to manipulate the menus ....

 

[Todd Burch]

Always click left wheel to pause. It's fortunately not a bug.

 

[sp4rk]

Always click left wheel to pause. It's fortunately not a bug.

Then it's a design flaw. If the right wheel cannot be used to pause, then the media app should be forced to line up with left wheel only?

 

[brianman]

Then it's a design flaw. If the right wheel cannot be used to pause, then the media app should be forced to line up with left wheel only?

And the left wheel should be disabled when you have the Trips UI up?

You're making the assumption that the wheel behavior and the displayed UI need to be in sync. They do not. And I'm glad they don't.

 

[Todd Burch]

Then it's a design flaw. If the right wheel cannot be used to pause, then the media app should be forced to line up with left wheel only?

As a mechanical engineer with experience and interest in human factors and interfaces, I disagree. Having the play/pause and other wheel control behaviors swap based on the side of the screen they're displayed on would be an interface disaster. With the visual displays, you look up and the information is there--on the left or right side. Your eyes shift as necessary. But with hand/finger-operated controls, muscle memory is important. Your brain gets trained that the left finger is for volume, play/pause, etc., and you don't want that to change. How often do you pause or advance the song without looking at the display? I do it all the time. Having to figure out which side the media app is on, then switching my muscle memory to use that hand, would be distracting.

And then, what do you do when the media app is not displayed? You'd have to pick a default side...which would then conflict with the controls for whatever is being displayed on that side of the console.

Not to mention that you wouldn't be able to print the control icons (forward and rewind arrows, etc) on the buttons, as they wouldn't always apply to those buttons.

 

[brianman]

Also, when the left side of the instrument cluster displays a void (because you just finished using Nav) the left wheel would be useless.