Tesla Full Self Driving Better UI
100% of the 50 people (including Tesla owners) got this wrong and were super confused about one of the best features Tesla cars have to offer.
I am talking about the Full Self Driving/Autopilot feature.,
This is what you see whenever you are navigating somewhere when you have FSD available on your Tesla.
I Drove Uber for the last month in my Tesla Model Y and that’s how I was able to get genuine reactions and opinions about what you see above.
I made sure I didn’t ask them leading questions and most of them recognized the blue button as a button (yes I didn’t even mention the UI to keep things super pure). They gave me puzzling looks when I asked them, “So what do you think this button will do if you were to interact with it?” And…
This is what they expected
They expected when they tap on the blue button, the car would “come alive” and drive them to their destination automatically while they put their hands behind their heads and maybe sipped a margarita like they do in the movies, of course!
This is what they got
All of them thought that the blue box with the text in it was a button (which it is) and it will make the care drive itself for them.
Such bad acting, much wow!
Nothing happens! The car just stays there and everyone has a puzzled look on their face.
This is how each one of them felt
I heard them say
“I’m stupid and I don’t know techhy stuff. I don’t understand this.”
“Oh! I think it’s a mistake I made. Surely I must be doing something wrong.”
“Why this car not moving? Did we break it?”
What is actually going on
No the car didn’t break and the passengers weren’t wrong. It is a simple case of miscommunication.
The car is trying to tell you that Full Self Driving/Autopilot is not available on all roads so while I navigate, do you want me to use FSD when it is available? Choose: Yes or No.
The solution
The fix is simple. Don’t use a button to show the status of a certain setting being active or not. I showed the below designs to other people sharing the earlier story and making them go through the same experience first and all of them came up with a similar solution and agreed with what you see below:
This is just an approximate recreation because I don’t know the resolution used in the original design along with other details.
The best thing is that there are absolutely no new elements that needed to be created. The Tesla software UI already has toggle buttons.
Goodies
This should be an easy fix for Elon’s team but if they do choose to check the design for this, here’s a Zeplin link: https://zpl.io/agxG9jO
Key takeaways
Do not use buttons to show status
We an see how important user testing is and how little details like these slip through the cracks (the Tesla UX team has done an amazing job with this otherwise)
Depend on the standard interaction design framework unless it’s really required to create a new type of an interaction. Learning how to use the car is challenging for new users anyway and we should do everything possible to reduce their cognitive load
Let’s not be a dick to the people who use our products. Let’s not confuse them and make them feel stupid.
What’s next?
This is just the beginning of the series of tweets/blog posts I have lined up for Tesla and Elon.
This very example is a part of a cohort-based course I learned from @wes_kao and @gaganbiyani.
I will be teaching aimed at educating non-designers how to catch flaws like these which may be holding back your profits and conversion rates.
If you’re interested, follow me on Twitter @dsk512
Stay tuned! #dontbelievemejustwatch