My peripheral vision isn't as good as it was years ago. Maybe it was never great. I know I'm not alone in this. I wear my computer glasses down on my nose, and that works just fine. But much as I LOVE my Model 3 I find the alerts unfathomably poorly done, and I can't help questioning the UI's safety and ergonomics. I see that adjusting overall font size has been discussed here. But that's not the issue. I want to live.
With all the malleable GUI screen real estate, why on earth have they made critical alerts pop up in tiny little boxes in limited locations, using little fonts that needlessly call you to take your eyes off the road, and the critical business of survival?
Good Heavens, this isn't a desktop computer you're leisurely reading straight-on! You're strapped in 2 tons of metal hurtling down a narrow asphalt strip at 2 kilometers per second, and you should be watching the environment, every millisecond, not looking over to decipher small text on an iPad! The DMV tells us never to be reading text messages. Yet I'm having to read warnings and lane change requests in 10 point fonts nearly 45 degrees off from center field. Why?
I'm fine with the single screen UI, the speedometer, etc. But as a coder and designer I know there's nothing preventing alerts from being much more safely legible. I can't believe nobody in the design group has insisted on this.
Alerts can e.g. display initially in a large (colorful?) box that you won't miss, in fonts that you can read out of the corner of your eyes, and then shrink and/or move out of the way. And there's nothing preventing options to optimize such behavior for different peoples' vision ... and sense of aesthetics. Am I alone in expecting this to be done smarter?
With all the malleable GUI screen real estate, why on earth have they made critical alerts pop up in tiny little boxes in limited locations, using little fonts that needlessly call you to take your eyes off the road, and the critical business of survival?
Good Heavens, this isn't a desktop computer you're leisurely reading straight-on! You're strapped in 2 tons of metal hurtling down a narrow asphalt strip at 2 kilometers per second, and you should be watching the environment, every millisecond, not looking over to decipher small text on an iPad! The DMV tells us never to be reading text messages. Yet I'm having to read warnings and lane change requests in 10 point fonts nearly 45 degrees off from center field. Why?
I'm fine with the single screen UI, the speedometer, etc. But as a coder and designer I know there's nothing preventing alerts from being much more safely legible. I can't believe nobody in the design group has insisted on this.
Alerts can e.g. display initially in a large (colorful?) box that you won't miss, in fonts that you can read out of the corner of your eyes, and then shrink and/or move out of the way. And there's nothing preventing options to optimize such behavior for different peoples' vision ... and sense of aesthetics. Am I alone in expecting this to be done smarter?
Last edited: