SAN JOSE — Is it me, or is it the machine?
I've pondered the question for two years, ever since leasing my car, a 2014 Infiniti Q50 Hybrid. It drives great, looks great, never breaks down. Mostly, I love it to death.
But then there's the dashboard — the machine in question, which poses a befuddling level of complexity. It has a pair of touch-sensitive monitors, multiple control centers and a galaxy of dials, buttons, menus and options that I suspect would confuse a seasoned software engineer.
It comes with a 135-page manual, this dashboard. It glows in the dark, swimming with color, like an aquarium exhibit. It is a mystery to me: Implement the voice recognition system? Adjust the surround-sound?
Forget it. Just setting the A/C can be a challenge.
Which is why I called Wendy Ju, executive director of the Center for Design Research at Stanford University, and asked her to take a look at my dashboard. I repeated my question: Is it me, or is it the machine?
"People are always saying that: 'Maybe it's me,'" she answered. "But probably it's not."
Indeed, legions of car owners — especially high-end car owners — suffer from dashboard-related anxieties. That's because dashboards and their infotainment systems have grown increasingly complex in recent years, requiring drivers to grasp ever more information and master longer and longer sets of commands. As an example, Ju's husband drives a 2012 Audi A3, which has an intimidating dashboard — "pretty terrible," she called it. "Its center-console interface is filled with design decisions that obviously haven't been adequately tested."
Ju has a doctorate in human-computer interactions and dashboard design is one of her bailiwicks, so we arranged to meet. I figured an hourlong, in-car tutorial with Ju would accomplish one of two things: either demystify my dashboard or justify my suspicion that the beast is out of control.
I arrived for the tutorial, pulling into the carport at the center's research garage. Ju slid into the passenger seat and scanned the environment: the cluster of steering wheel controls, the splash-screen behind the wheel (yet another array of endlessly customizable information), the two monitors — and a lonely auxiliary dial between the front seats, which Ju described as "vestigial," sizing it up as a remnant of an early phase in the dashboard's design.
Over the next hour, she poked around, trying this, trying that — exploring. She found three ways to find and adjust the clock — make that clocks, as my dashboard turns out to have an array of them ("analog," "digital," "world") housed inside a so-called "clock garage." All new to me.
After plenty of trial and error, Ju succeeded in pairing my cellphone to the infotainment system via Bluetooth. (The pairing is a chronic problem.) When she finally did, the connection instantly and inexplicably triggered a pair of unrelated responses — my driver's seat lurched forward and the air conditioning switched on.
We broke into laughter, and Ju explained a few things about dashboard design.
"The teams of people that work on the steering controls, the instrument panel and the center console — these are completely different design teams," she said, "very often not in the same company — and they don't talk to each other!"
Ju also pointed out that whereas the design cycle for the typical smartphone lasts about 18 months, it can take seven years to design and produce an automobile. That means some of the technologies in my car could date to 2007 — around the time Apple released the first iPhone. Given the mobile technology revolution that since has occurred, consumer expectations "increasingly are not easy for the auto manufacturers to live up to," Ju explained.
"I hope that makes you feel less crazy," she said, adding, "You are not alone."
One might ask why automakers don't just simplify and back off the complexity. The answer is obvious, Ju said: Automakers are in competition with Apple and Samsung and other makers of smartphones and tablets. Drivers routinely bring those devices into their cars, consulting their calendars, their email, their GPS. But the automakers don't want drivers on their smartphones while driving. It isn't safe. And beyond that, she explained, "They don't want these other companies to take over the experience of being in their car."
So they have attempted, with limited success, to design super-multifunctional dashboards.
Like the one in my car, which Ju continued to help me navigate.
With her guidance, I loaded my iPhone's contact list onto the dashboard's system. I selected a few as "favorites." I then triggered the voice recognition system by tapping an icon on the steering wheel. A Siri-like voice began asking all sorts of questions about what I had in mind. I answered, trying out a few commands that Infiniti's version of Siri didn't understand — not until I said, "Call Sara," my wife.
The call went through. Victory!
We moved on to the GPS system, jumping from option to option on the touch-sensitive monitor. We touched "hotels" and a list of nearby hotels popped up on the monitor's map. We touched "restaurants" and up popped half a dozen restaurants, though one was out of business, Ju noted. We typed in my office address and the GPS responded with three alternative routes: fastest, shortest and most energy-efficient, each appearing as its own color-coded line on the map.
"Cool features," Ju said.
My problem: Would I be able to repeat these tasks? Each could be triggered in more than one way — from the steering wheel, from the upper monitor, from the lower monitor — and each method typically involved its own succession of steps.
My dashboard was a model of overkill: "Oh, my gosh, there's email here!" Ju announced, stumbling onto a previously hidden function. "Well," she said after that initial burst of enthusiasm, "I'm not sure it's a good idea to do email in your car."
The principles of user interface design emphasize simplicity, conciseness, clarity, consistency and comprehensibility. I wondered if my dashboard embodied any of those qualities.
Ju's verdict was mixed.
She noted that my dashboard's designers had prioritized certain common tasks, bringing them within reach of the driver — my phone's "favorites," for example, are close by the steering wheel. Yet, other tasks are confusingly organized; the dashboard bunches together too many related and unrelated options.
But Ju has seen worse. And she held out hope for the future. Apple and Google have developed technologies that project smartphone apps onto the screen in your car, making it easier to access those apps without having to reach for your phone. Sensing a competitive threat, car companies are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the redesigning of their dashboards.
"The manufacturers are smart enough to be scared," Ju said. "So I expect a lot of these things to get better."
