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When you buy an electric car, everyone wants to know what itâs like. Howâve you found the switch? How long does it take to charge? Is it cheaper? Quieter? More fun? Less fun? And, the most important question – how long does the battery last?
I can answer all of these questions easily – itâs great, itâs ÂŁ20 to âfill upâ, itâs fun, itâs quick, and yes, Iâve managed to drive halfway across the country without coming to a slow standstill on the side of the road. I love it.
It does something else that I didnât expect though, something which I think shows the importance of using your own product before releasing it into the world, the importance of understanding how humans work, not just what your technology can do.
It repeatedly locks my children in the car.
Now, depending on your view on children, you may see this as an annoying fault or a handy beneficial feature. Youâll have to guess my view. But hereâs what happens.
The designers have created a super-smart feature that senses when the driverâs weight is on the driverâs seat. So, when the driver (me) gets up, the radio switches off and the car shuts down. I close my door, and the entire car locks up. Smart, huh?
Well, maybe smart if youâre flying around the Ehra-Lessien testing track or have the car set up in a lab. But when you have a family of four involved, things seem to work differently:
- The car pulls into the driveway
- I, having been yelled out for an hour, want to exit the car as quickly as possible
- The kids, having spent the last hour wanting to know precisely when they will get home and telling me how bored they are, decide that now, actually, theyâre not in that much of a hurry to get out
- I open the door and leave the vehicle, happy to let them stay there
- The car senses my weight shift – maybe my mood, too – and locks the doors behind me
- Excitable chaos ensues
Thereâs plenty more of these features, too.
When itâs cold outside, the aircon automatically starts at 23 degrees instead of 19. Clever, right? Well not really, because when itâs cold outside, Iâm clambering into the car wrapped in coats, hats, and gloves. A few minutes at 23 degrees, and my car is veering left and right as I desperately try to de-robe. If Iâm happy with 19 in the summer, why not the winter, too?
The lane-assist is a wonderful feature on the motorway, gently nudging the steering left and right to keep you central on the road. Itâs less useful on residential roads with cars routinely parked on the roadside. You casually pull out into the middle to pass the parked cars, and the car violently jerks you back into the lane, presuming youâve made some awful steering error and, in fact, you wanted to smash directly into your neighbourâs van. (This feature can, mercifully be turned off. But sadistically, resets to âonâ every time to restart the car.)
And then, we get to the lack of buttons, a hot topic within the car design community. In my first car, a barely-functioning Ford Fiesta, I know where all of the buttons were by memory. Slight left – aircon dial. Middle – temperature. Far left – where do I want the air.
In our car, twenty-five years of design brilliance later, we have a beautiful big touchscreen, full of all the information and data you could wish to see about your journey – but ridgeless flat buttons to touch or side your fingers along. The problem is, you have to look at them to know where to touch. And if youâre looking at that screen, youâre not looking at the road. And looking at the road is a fairly crucial part of successfully driving a car.
Building on my last article, itâs not enough to ask customers what they want, and build that. And itâs not enough to see what technology exists and just build that, either.Â
In fact, itâs not even enough to use your product yourself, because you may be a very different person to your customer (âTreat customers how youâd want to be treatedâ is one of my least favourite bits of advice).
For truly customer-led innovation, you have to immerse in your customersâ lives and behaviours, observing them using the products and services youâve designed, and seeing all the nuances and quirks that neither you or they had considered.
That way youâll spot the problems before your customers have to deal with them – and you might save a few family arguments, too.
(P.S. After publishing this article, I receved several other examples, including:
- Putting my bag on the seat and the car refusing to drive until the bag had a seatbelt on
- Being unable to scrape the car windows because I had to be in the seat for the heating to be on
- Bright red flashing ‘BRAKE!’ warnings for no obvious reason
- The parking sensors being unable to distinguish a twig from a wall, causing it to automatically slam on the brakes and jolt everyone forward as I slowly go past a harmless leaf)
Thanks for reading this article, I really hope you enjoyed it. You can subscribe to my monthly newsletter below, find me in picture form on Instagram @johnjsills, or in work mode at The Foundation and LinkedIn.
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