circuitfarmer , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Clearly you're meant to have the car on its side before playing any media

Ghostalmedia OP , 5 months ago

True. On its left side.

macrocephalic , 5 months ago

Well it is a Japanese car, and they drive on the left side in Japan

Ghostalmedia OP , 5 months ago

British car

kameecoding , 5 months ago

Still left side

weiln12 , 5 months ago

My VW is this way and it’s infuriating. It drives me nuts that Down is Next, it’s so backwards.

Volume should be up/down, and track left/right.

I’m curious if the left/right would be language dependent? English is left to right, so Right would be Next. Would Hebrew and Arabic be the opposite since they’re right to left languages?

zipzoopaboop , 5 months ago

I have my now old VW because their design was so intuitive. Sad how much worse they've become in the past 10 years in design and quality

stoy , 5 months ago

I have only had one car, a 2021 Seat Leon, qnd the media controls are great, but spread out on the steering wheeel...

The volume control is located on the left side, it is a wheel, roll it up, volume goes up, roll it down, volume goes down, push the wheel, and the music is paused. Next/Previous buttons are located on the right side of the steering wheel, works great!

Now, if only it didn't have touch controls for everything outside the steering wheel...

youRFate , 5 months ago

Oof yes, my Kia ev6 too. Down is next. In my BMW up was next.

dan , 5 months ago

It drives me nuts that Down is Next, it’s so backwards.

How is that backwards? If you have music in a playlist in a media player app (or iPod or other MP3 player), the next song is underneath the one you're currently playing.

Gordon , 5 months ago

Which direction do you move your finger to access the next song on your phone when. Looking at a play list.

Your finger moves up then taps the one you want.

You could just as easily say that next should be up.

Both are wrong.

Next should be left, volume should be up / down.

1rre , 5 months ago

Down is next because it's a list of songs with the first song at the top and the last at the bottom.

Frankly it's the orientation that makes the most sense when you consider it given most people will be listening from a streaming service, but back when CDs were a thing the songs weren't considered a list but tracks numbered from 1 to n. The up button incremented the track number and so it made sense for up to be next.

Going even further to tapes, fast forward and rewind literally moved the tape left to right/right to left, and so it made sense for them to be right and left respectively, however now it makes less sense other than being what older people are used to

Gordon , 5 months ago

Having grown up in the tape era, the right button being next / fast forward just make sense.

I can see on a screen that you'd scroll down to get to the bottom of a playlist, but isn't your finger moving up?

This is the classic problem of inverted vertical controls or not?

Just avoid it altogether and make the back / skip button left / right respectively, and volume be up / down which just makes obvious sense.

1rre , 5 months ago

It's not scrolling though - using the arrow keys on a keyboard or d-pad on a controller you'd use up to go up and down to go down when navigating documents, menus etc. As far as I'm aware unlike when you're moving a viewport either by scrolling or in games there's no debate when it comes to moving a caret.

And as you said, "having grown up in the tape era". Just because it was logical for that application and so is logical to you doesn't mean it's still logical - people who grew up with record players could just as easily argue for two spinning knobs as you're moving a potentiometer to increase/decrease the volume, and spinning the record forward/back; having grown up in the CD era I had both of them being up/down or left/right as the buttons were either beneath or either side of the slot/hatch most of the time, same with tv remotes having both as up/down, and given there was no standard then I don't think either one "just makes sense"

BananaPeal , 5 months ago

I'm lucky that my Subaru has it right. Left right are back forward and up down is volume. My only complaint is that the button in the middle is mute, rather than pause. I can pause CDs, bluetooth audio, and even live radio. Why in hell would I ever choose mute over pause?

captain_aggravated , 5 months ago

Why have a mute button when you could turn the radio off?

BananaPeal , 5 months ago

Because resuming from mute or pause has less delay. Particularly if using a CD or bluetooth audio.

jenny_ball , 5 months ago

yea Subaru does have it right. i was driving a Corolla and the buttons don't even control the touch screen at all i don't even know why they are there.

natecox , 5 months ago

This layout makes sense if you have used an old school mp3 player or similar.

Volume is left and right because it’s an analog of the volume bar on the screen.

Up and down is previous and next because play was controlled by a list UI so you were moving a cursor up and down between songs.

It’s not how I personally would prefer it, but it’s not as outlandish as it seems.

Ghostalmedia OP , 5 months ago

That makes a lot of sense. I still hate it, but i understand the justification for it now.

kautau , 5 months ago

Probably also matches to a visible screen with track visibility, so up and down is literally moving between tracks

chuckleslord , 5 months ago

The up and down, in this case, also correspond with how the menus work on the HUD or Center control panel. Source, MINI owner since 2009.

AnarchistArtificer , 5 months ago

Thank you for making this make more sense.

Lucidlethargy , 5 months ago

I still feel like this is sillt... I've owned a lot of mp3 players and none of them worked this way. Was this a zune thing or something?

natecox , 5 months ago

Every mp3 player I owned in the 2000’s worked this way. Screen above, controls below, list UI for tracks, usually volume rocker or dial on top.

Sometimes the UI would be more complicated and would include a left/right button for navigating horizontal menus (like my all time favorite Zen Vision:M) but the basic playlist was still a vertical scrolling list UI.

Rememo , 5 months ago

Same in my 2017 Toyota. Bought it new and trained my brain to use it. Someone finally released a replacement that's set up correctly, and now I'm relearning the control.

wander1236 , 5 months ago

Yeah that was one of the many things that annoyed me in pre-2020 Toyotas, along with the insane baked-in audio delay and the hilariously ridiculous manually-stored images for songs and artists.

nezbyte , 5 months ago

The up and down are used to go up and down in menus lists. It matches the animations as well. It would be infuriating if those buttons were on the horizontal.

reddig33 , 5 months ago

So what you’re saying is, drivers should take their eyes off the road to look at a list of songs on a screen? Sounds like another horrible design decision.

Aatube , 5 months ago

The expectation for everything is to only use the screen when you're stopped, plus how else would you navigate a menu? Memorize it?

everett , 5 months ago

You don't have to look at the car's main media screen. A simplified list UI is replicated onto a small window that temporarily shows up next to the speedometer.

someguy3 , 5 months ago

Hmmm but I think volume up and down, selection left and right are age old. And you shouldn't look at the screen anyway

nezbyte , 5 months ago

For sure, most screens in cars are dangerously implemented. My 2015 Mini has a transparent HUD so I don’t have to look away from the road. No touchscreen either. Long live tactile interfaces in cars.

18_24_61_b_17_17_4 , 5 months ago

Fucking Christ that is stupid. That would drive me insane.

skooks , 5 months ago

...drive me

I see you

scytale , 5 months ago

Name and shame. What make and model?

Ghostalmedia OP , 5 months ago

Mini Cooper S. Been a Mini thing for years. It’s infuriating.

momtheregoesthatman , 5 months ago

That is a bummer. BMW owns them now ans I LOVE the media controls on ours. Simple & straightforward.

Ghostalmedia OP , 5 months ago

The Mini design team has been pretty separate, and they were often able to get away with quirky stuff that drove the German teams nuts. Dip switches, hidden compartments, etc.

Although there are some parts that are very BMW. For example, this car has BMW style signal stalks. They have that weird bias for a brief short burst.

DuckPuppet , 5 months ago

I would risk life and limb to crack that open and find a way to right this wrong.

toiletobserver , 5 months ago

Wouldn't it be nice if an engineer had decision making power?

And009 , 5 months ago

You mean a designer right? Developers and engineers are the ones making these weird decisions

Cqrd , 5 months ago

Managers make weird decisions, engineers and developers just do what they're told when it comes to user facing experiences.

BiggestBulb , 5 months ago

As an engineer with a boss I really do not like and who makes moronic decisions ALL the time (that I then have to go along with), I agree

kautau , 5 months ago

Yeah engineer, developer, and designer all give their input. Designer proposal is likely the most user friendly, but, changes come with real tangible engineering / development costs. Manager says “ok stick with what we have, it’s cheaper.”

I’m a software engineer and UX designer.

Being in both those roles can sometimes be incredibly frustrating. Like “yes, this is the best solution for users. It helps dev by being more future proof, using more common patterns with more readily available open source software. It will take considerable dev time so we should do it now rather than later. If we don’t do this now it will just lead to more technical debt and a worse experience”

CTO: “sounds expensive, let’s not do it”

A year later, CTO: “why is this so convoluted? Shouldn’t we have worked on these changes earlier?”

suprised_pikachu.jpg

DemBoSain , 5 months ago

Engineer here. It's like that because that's the way it's always been. To change it would mean retooling silk-screen printing on the D-pad, and changing the wiring underneath. And they probably use this D-pad everywhere, so someone like me will have to talk to someone else like me, and right now I have phone shyness (can't just be an email, have to call a meeting). I'll also have to talk to a supplier and get them to change the wiring, and Procurement won't let me just change anything, because it gives suppliers a chance to requote a job, and they'll ask for more money. And then I'll have to talk to Production, because they'll have to retrain the workers, make sure someone doesn't stop the line because this new part doesn't look exactly like the old part. Oh, and Quality of course, need to make sure the inspectors don't start rejecting the new parts (just kidding, they never look at parts). Then there's Marketing. Since this is a customer-facing part, definitely need their input. Might have to change catalogs and brochures with new pictures.

No, they just got the good brand of gummy bears in the cafeteria, I'm going to go buy a bag of those, and then fill out these forms my new boss has been asking about. New boss, new forms, same old shit.

bobs_monkey , 5 months ago

Nothing personal, but that's bullshit on the company. Rotate the entire assembly 90° to the direction where the next track arrow points right, and counter rotate the ok gel button so that it's properly up and down. I can't imagine a silk screen template is that engrained. There might be some mounting screw difference, but adjust that in manufacturing from your parts suppliers. No reengineering of the harness necessary. This is just pure laziness.

DemBoSain , 5 months ago

that's the way it's always been!

stoy , 5 months ago

You have allready missed details, this would be worse than before.

For two reasons:

The customers who are used to this scheme will have to relearn the button placement, this will generate complaints, so the change will generate bad PR for the brand for years as people upgrade their car and have to relearn the controls.

If we went with your suggestion, the volume buttons would be 90 degrees off.

Fermion , 5 months ago

Remapping gpio pins doesn't require changing wiring, but it might require tracking a unique firmware revision.

Hamartiogonic , 5 months ago

Sounds like a proper project to me. No wonder companies keep the same stuff for way too long. If it’s not horribly broken and on fire, don’t fix it. Being slightly broken is apparently totally fine though.