Notes budding
I've revised this idea a bit, but it's not fully-formed yet.
by Matthew Lyon  • 

I distinctly remember the first time I rented a car which used a wireless fob and an in-dash ignition button instead of a metal key – something felt minutely but unmistakably off to me, and it crystalized in my memory as this is the future, and I hate it. Many years later, owning my first car with such a fob, daily use has helped me finally pin down that feeling: it’s not predictable.

With physical keys, there is a predictable and ubiquitous interaction pattern:

  • car is OFF:

    • key is turned away from driver one click: car enters ACCESSORY MODE

    • key is turned away from driver two clicks-plus and held

      • is the brake pedal depressed?

        • YES: START ENGINE and car enters IDLE

  • car is in ACCESSORY MODE:

    • key is turned towards driver: car enters OFF

    • key is turned away from driver one click-plus and held

      • is the brake pedal depressed?

        • YES: START ENGINE and car enters IDLE

  • car is IDLE:

    • key is turned one click towards driver: car enters ACCESSORY MODE

    • key is turned two clicks towards driver: STOP ENGINE and car enters OFF

This description is of a finite state machine, an incredibly useful tool for thinking about stateful interactions, and entirely applicable to this simplified model of how someone can switch on or off a car’s electronics and engine.

Newer cars instead have a wireless key fob and a button. Assuming the fob is present, here’s what’s supposed to happen according to the manual when I press my car’s ignition button:

  • car is OFF:

    • is the brake pedal depressed?

      • YES: START ENGINE and car enters IDLE

      • NO: car enters ACCESSORY MODE

  • car is in ACCESSORY MODE:

    • START ENGINE and car enters IDLE

  • car is IDLE:

    • STOP ENGINE and car enters OFF

This new state machine as described in my car’s manual is more compact, but it prevents a) entering accessory mode while the car is idling; and b) turning the car off directly from accessory mode. This assumes the button works as described. It doesn’t.

Here’s a modified state machine based on my experiences with the vehicle:

  • car is OFF:

    • is the brake pedal depressed?

      • YES: START ENGINE and car enters IDLE

      • NO: FLIP A COIN

        • HEADS: car enters ACCESSORY MODE

        • TAILS: car BEEPS ANNOYINGLY AND DISPLAYS AN ADMONISHMENT

  • car is in ACCESSORY MODE:

    • FLIP A COIN:

      • HEADS: START ENGINE and car enters IDLE

      • TAILS: car enters OFF

  • car is IDLE:

    • FLIP A COIN:

      • HEADS: STOP ENGINE and car enters OFF

      • TAILS: car enters ACCESSORY MODE for lesser of 30 seconds or until driver’s door is opened

Perhaps I’m not doing it right, nor is my partner, or the many fellow owners of our model car who have complained on a variety of internet forums. After all, I haven’t made any sort of attempts to observe my behavior as I switch the car’s modes, to understand if, for example, I’m still depressing the brake pedal when I go to shut the car off, and that’s why it skips the brief accessory mode interlude. I shouldn’t have to.

§

The car’s stereo system brings its own grab bag of frustrations, mainly in that it insists we listen to something. If we are not playing anything through CarPlay, it will after some period of aural inactivity turn on the radio. There is no obvious way to turn the radio off without hunting through touch screen menus, so instead we press the volume knob in to toggle the mute switch.

But the volume knob brings an even bigger frustration: it only works if something is playing and the car’s touchscreen is in normal mode, that is, not displaying its “I promise to drive safely” legal waiver or the backup camera. If I’m listening to something, and I stop playback because the music or the book is at a good stopping point and I’m close to my destination, I then have no way to turn the volume down as a kindness to the next person to drive the car (very likely my partner) without either resuming playback or engaging the radio – either manually or through idleness.

This is perhaps a finer point for some people: What’s the big deal? You can just turn it down when you start it up next time. But of course, this interaction exists in a larger context. Consider:

  1. I have a harder time hearing things than my partner does; she prefers the volume around 10 whereas I prefer it around 20, sometimes as high as 30 if it’s a good song or a soft-spoken audiobook narrator

  2. We park nose-in in our garage, which means leaving our home requires backing out, which means the backup camera is enabled for the first 20-40 seconds or so of the car being on

  3. We listen to things – even the local college radio station – almost exclusively through CarPlay, which takes between 10 seconds and three minutes to connect, if it automatically connects

  4. CarPlay’s playback state (what it’s playing and whether it’s paused) at connection time state is – it seems, but I’m not quite sure – either what it was doing last time the phone disconnected from CarPlay, or the most recent playback item from the phone.

Before I got into a very rigorous routine with managing the car’s volume before shutting it off at home, it happened not infrequently that my partner would take the car to leave the house and get halfway down the driveway before her podcast started blasting at twice or more her preferred volume, and she couldn’t even turn it down without taking the car out of reverse and waiting for the distracted driving safety notice to give up waiting for us to waive liability.

At least the mute button still works.

§

When we took our car into the dealership for the 60 day service, the customer satisfaction representative asked if we had any questions. We mentioned these complaints among other things, and she shrugged her shoulders and proclaimed in exasperation: It’s a computer!

This is not an excuse for slacking on either design or quality control. Interface controls are supposed to be predictable, especially when used in potentially high-stress, dangerous, or distracted situations. Ensuring they are predictable requires rigor and discipline.

As the surface area of complexity grows – and introducing a computer into the control system certainly affects this – it becomes more difficult to not simply make sure things work the way they’re supposed to, but to even define how they’re supposed to work. The increase in complexity does not forgive a lazy or parsimonious approach to design.

They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to, indeed.