I thought it was just me

kb58 said:

Have modern car driver interfaces become too complicated for some people.

I wouldn't have brought this up, but was talking with some buddies and one brought up how his wife got mad at him after he changed the display mode in her car. I can see her point, that it's her car and doesn't want it messed with. But he went on to say that she didn't know how to change the display back to the "MPG" screen, and he then realized that for seven years, she'd been looking at "average speed" and thinking it was MPG. He said he wanted to bring up the terse and direct guy comment of "RTFM" but knew better.

His story started everyone talking at once, about how wives don't seem to care to understand how to operate their own car. Instead of reading the manual, they simply conclude that it's broken if it doesn't work as expected. There were stories about spouses having their car towed to a dealer, only to be told that nothing was wrong, and that the dash indicator meant that the hatch wasn't latched. Another spouse refused to drive the car because she saw a new red dash indicator. This, as she sat in the car with the driver's door open, pointing at the indicator showing that a door was open, yet not knowing that's what it meant.

Perhaps worst of all is that all the said spouses concluded that there is something wrong with the car, even after it was explained. What was most concerning wasn't that some one had such a story, but that we all did, all involving spouses having concluded that their cars are unreliable because they won't read the manual. Because women have so much decision-making authority when buying a new car, this misguided perception of unreliability could end up hurting car makers. Maybe they need to work harder on their human-to-machine interface, like getting rid of display icons and just say "Driver's door open", or "Hatch unlatched." Anything short of this could lead to misperceptions about what's going on, but for most people, perception is reality, so car makers better simplify a bit more.

I've only read the first post so far. But, do yall hate your wives? Or is it popular in your circle to demean them? Or have y'all not realized yet that a bunch of car-dudes are married to non-car-dudettes. So, maybe they simply do not care to learn what car-dudes find typical knowledge. 

It doesn't help that the owner's manual is over 200 pages long nowadays.

My kids had to take Home Economics in school but unfortunately they didn't have to take any kind of car tech 101 like how to check the oil or tire pressure or add windshield wiper fluid. At least the H. E. teacher told them to have me teach them how to change a tire.

I do however have to have my wife change the clock twice every year during the daylight savings changes because otherwise, I would just wait another 6 months and it would be correct again.

How do people figure out rental cars?

Aspen said:

In reply to Schmidlap :

My bmw does that,  it will also bring up the owners manual for more detail.

Damn, so much for my original idea. Although I figured someone must have done it already.

My brother finally got his first smart phone and is learning it app by app.  He has gotten as far as basic buttons, phone functions, texting, and camera  - and that's just a small fraction of all the crap (apps and config) that come with a smart phone.  There's a huge amount of learning curve that people who have been doing this for years take for granted.  Cars are getting to be the same way - a computer (actually multiple computers) on wheels with a lot of features and configurable functions.  Combine the complexity with a lousy and inconsistent interface design, run by a driver whose first priority has to be driving and it's no wonder that people (not just women) complain that cars are too complicated and never figure everything out.