Core77

Chrysler's silly design concept: No ifs, ands, or buttons

By Rain Noe - April 13, 2009

in Object Culture

Chrysler has come up with a rather odd design philosophy for their 200C concept car: No buttons. "You won't see a single button on this vehicle from the doors to the interior to the infotainment system," says Chrysler spokesman Jason Monroe, as if that in itself is something brag-worthy.

The touchscreen system inside the car was developed by electronics systems developer the Nartron Corporation, and as their CEO points out, the Chrysler system is like "what Apple did with the iPhone." Furthermore,

[The system] lets drivers use any smartphone as a virtual key fob to control a host of functions, including locking and unlocking the vehicle's doors and trunk and rolling the windows up and down. With their smartphones, users can also access a live interior shot of the vehicle as well as check on the status of their home's security alarm, carbon dioxide and smoke detectors.

...The passenger side of the 200C deploys a UConnect tablet so passengers can access the car's entertainment features and send recommendations to the driver.

Jeez Louise, where do I begin.

A) Do people not realize that merely copying certain features of the friggin' iPhone does not make it an automatic design success?

B) How often will we need to see a "live interior shot" of our car--is this in case we lock our kids inside while we're at the mall?

C) Checking the carbon dioxide detector at home? Is this something we've been clamoring for?

D) What I'd really like when driving a car is to have a friend sitting in the back seat avoid talking to me altogether so s/he can "send recommendations" to me via touchscreen.

via ny times wheels blog

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Steve

15 years ago

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Make everything like an iPhone and it will be a success!!!
So when you crash your car while trying to figure out how to turn on the iWipers, you can call with your iPhone to get the iPolice to you.
Makes you wonder what the "i" really stands for...
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daniel

15 years ago

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and we were worried about Detroit...

Bye Bye Detroit.
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youngdesign

15 years ago

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E) Not having any safe control over what your car is doing since you have to look at the interface!!!!!

So have we lost all control of the car from our steering wheel now? Where is the Cruise-Control button? Or is our steering wheel now a touch screen.

Gees: why don't they just make the steering wheel one giant Apple Click Wheel!?@#
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John Stoner

15 years ago

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worse, the iPhone is designed to be controlled by eye-hand coordination. Good control surfaces for a driver accommodate the driver looking at, you know, the road, not the radio or whatever. You need to be able to navigate by feel. iPhone design is great--I have one--but navigation by touch was never one of the design goals. This not just misguided design, but unsafe design.
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Steve Portigal

15 years ago

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They had me at "infotainment"
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