Software update 2020.48.26.x update, font size problems

[HankLloydRight]

My gut feeling is that the people doing UI design at Tesla don't have any experience in human factors engineering for vehicles or mechanical systems, and come from more generic UI backgrounds. For a website, playing "F around and see what works" isn't dangerous.

For a car, it's incredibly important to get it right. ESPECIALLY cars with a dearth of physical controls as fallbacks.

Unfortunately ,it's been exactly this for the last several major version FW updates.. it's clear they have absolutely no clue how to design and develop UIs for actual DRIVING. Each update pulls more and more attention AWAY from the road to focus on the completely braindead UI. IT SHOULD BE 100% THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Idiots, all of them, including Elon Musk who supports this path.

 

[bmah]

Unfortunately ,it's been exactly this for the last several major version FW updates.. it's clear they have absolutely no clue how to design and develop UIs for actual DRIVING. Each update pulls more and more attention AWAY from the road to focus on the completely braindead UI. IT SHOULD BE 100% THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Idiots, all of them, including Elon Musk who supports this path.

Because fart noises and games are so much more shiny than user interfaces that deliver clear, consistent, predictable presentation of controls and safety-critical information.

The only truly necessary UI change than I can recall in the last 5+ years was going from 6.2 to 7.0, when Autopilot-equipped cars got the driving visualization...back in 2015.

(sorry I'm probably helping drag this thread into ranty-land)

Bruce.

 

[_avl_]

Agreed on all points except the games. Not even going to bother with those, waste of time and storage.

My gut feeling is that the people doing UI design at Tesla don't have any experience in human factors engineering for vehicles or mechanical systems, and come from more generic UI backgrounds. For a website, playing "F around and see what works" isn't dangerous.

For a car, it's incredibly important to get it right. ESPECIALLY cars with a dearth of physical controls as fallbacks.

The thing is, I actually like the Model 3 UI as a whole. I think it's easy to use and generally well designed.

Having said that, I really belive that the UI changes made for this version represent a significant downgrade and I don't like most of what they have done.

 

[X007X]

The font is too small for my old eyes.

I think the issue is: The cars are owned by those who are older who can afford a Tesla in their later in life and with poorer eye sights to read small fonts but the cars are made by young engineers who are mostly with excellent eyesight with no problem with small fonts.

I’m 32. Does that make me old?

but yes the font size is smaller then I would like

 

[glide]

It's not that big of a deal to me but it does seem like a step backwards. Lots of unused white space on the screen now. They need to shrink that side or make it useful.

The simplest and most useful update would be just letting us see battery percentage and miles at the same time. Why do we have to pick. Plenty of empty space for it now..

The greyed-out battery capacity indicator is an absolutely unfathomable design decision.

 

[bobby g]

Because fart noises and games are so much more shiny than user interfaces that deliver clear, consistent, predictable presentation of controls and safety-critical information.

The only truly necessary UI change than I can recall in the last 5+ years was going from 6.2 to 7.0, when Autopilot-equipped cars got the driving visualization...back in 2015.

(sorry I'm probably helping drag this thread into ranty-land)

Bruce.

Don't know about all that but during my short drive today, I enjoyed the new look.

 

[macgeng]

Oh snap. I thought it was just mine that's jacked up. This might have been a bug. The car looks weird too. I'm sure it will be fixed soon.

 

[bobby g]

The greyed-out battery capacity indicator is an absolutely unfathomable design decision.

Have to back up a bit - that did bug me, at first I thought it was like greyed out and not working

 

[chrisf60526]

Well...Elon came out and said the ability to change the UI around is coming so perhaps you guys can make it more toward your liking.

 

[Watts_Up]

100% agree. I'll take an emphasis on adding safety features over games any day.

Any news about adding 'waypoints' ?

Is it that difficult to implement ?
It seems that any new car that Bjørn Nyland drive has such feature ?
Without 'waypoints' the Navigation is not very helpful.

Quite often the Navigation selects an itinerary that I don't want to use, such as
- making a detour to reach a freeway entrance while using street roads would be simpler and faster, or
- driving into residential area because it is shorter, but I would prefer using main arteries with less stop signs or traffic light, or
- I try to avoid making a left turn when there is no traffic light with a special lane, or
- there is no way to determine if I will be able to reach my destination without using a Supercharger if I need to make a detour...

 

[mt09]

Source Reddit Post

IMO there are so many things to nitpick here and not worth listing. If it wasn't for the old AP visualization one might think the bottom is the before image. I honestly think the team that did the original design would be pissed off. You can see there was a lot of thought and intent put into it that got wiped out. Even subtle things like the background gradient that's black at the top giving increased contrast to the important speed information at the top is gone.

 

[Superspectral]

This new user interface is terrible. Much less elegant. All those numbers cluttering right next to the speed indicator. I find the text harder to read.

 

[StanMI]

Went out for our first drive with the new version.

Smaller font sucks !!

 

[Fiddler]

2020.48.12.26 does not exist. There is 2020.48.12 and 2020.48.26 and even 2020.48.12.1 but no 2020.48.26
Sorry

 

[run-the-joules]

Well...Elon came out and said the ability to change the UI around is coming so perhaps you guys can make it more toward your liking.

Elon has said a lot of things are coming. If they come, great, but don't count on them.

 

[nctalkinghead]

Font is so small the OP could not clearly see the 2020.48.26

 

[ColdWeatherEV]

Totally agree. The fonts are indeed way too small.

How’d did you change the icon during FSD!? And I didn’t really see any major improvements with the FSD visualizations. What am I missing?

Wish the Tesla app got updated too.....

The Santa "Vehicle" is a toybox feature that can be toggled on or off. Our roads are currently snowpacked, so I haven't been able to test display changes for full self driving. The blue wheel indicator and speed limit sign have been moved, and the fonts are smaller. I'm guessing they are making more room so they can display more information for the upcoming major upgrade to fsd. The fonts are smaller, but I can still read them OK. It is just a shock at first since we are all so used to what we had before. Lets give it some time to see what they plan to do with the extra space on the screen.

 

[Piwacet]

I wish the battery wasn't grey. I prefer the colors like before.

 

[verygreen]

Lets give it some time to see what they plan to do with the extra space on the screen.

they obviously just plan to move it (all text) all from the top to the bottom too to give way for more visualization stuff.

 

[drtimhill]

Totally agree. The fonts are indeed way too small.

How’d did you change the icon during FSD!? And I didn’t really see any major improvements with the FSD visualizations. What am I missing?

Wish the Tesla app got updated too.....

They are laying groundwork for FSD, which needs more room to show road layouts etc at junctions. Sadly the more open look has been crammed up to make way for this (I agree the fonts are a bit on the small side now). On the plus side, the traffic signals visualizations etc are more readable now, and although it is cramped the speedometer reading is easier to see (on the Model 3) out of the corner of your eye.

My guess is things will get tweaked again before FSD is released. I also dont like the reduction to the maps view. I did notice on some of the FSD betas the screens resized based on the driving mode, hopefully we will get something like that eventually.